


Silhouette

by Laralee



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-02-21 15:44:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 66,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2473649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laralee/pseuds/Laralee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Severus Snape has been granted release from St. Mungo's following a lengthy recovery, but it is with one simple condition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Characters are property of J.K Rowling and the Harry Potter Universe. Thankfully, she allows me to borrow them for a bit of fun.**

* * *

**Silhouette**

**Prologue**

There was another fly in his room.

The insect had not yet been seen, but it could be heard well enough. The faint drone of its tiny wings disrupted his train of thought and his reading. Severus Snape pushed himself up in his seat with a wince. Convalescence had not been kind to him, and he would be the first to admit that unfortunate fact. He had only turned thirty-nine a few weeks prior, but he felt like a man stretched far beyond his years.

Of course hours of sitting in the same chair would do that to a person, but he would have much rather dealt with the troublesome pain in his back than the sad state of life that existed beyond his closed door. Severus rarely left the confines of his room, and when he did it was after the halls had gone still. He liked it best when he was surrounded by silence instead of madness, when he could quietly slip away unnoticed for a moment or two.

After all, the Dangerous Dai Llewllyn Ward of St. Mungo's was not a pleasant place, least of all when its patients were awake. The cold stone walls amplified the screams that echoed down the long corridors. When Severus had finally regained awareness of his surroundings, those screams had set the hair on his arms on end and reminded him of countless he had heard before. Over time, he had learned to tolerate the shouts and shrieks that would taper off into pitiful cries, but he knew he would never get used to them. In the meantime, and on particularly breezy nights such as the one currently beyond the hospital walls, he settled for leaving the only window in his room slightly ajar, allowing in the sounds of London and the occasional fly.

The current fly in question had found its way inside through that same window and could not seem to retrace its path. It bounced stupidly across the windowpane in search of an escape. Severus contemplated the ignorant thing as it moved back and forth as though it was testing the glass for weakness. It would stop a moment to scuttle a few inches up or down only to hurl itself moments later at the window almost as if it intended to put itself out of misery. It was an oddly sad spectacle, but once upon a time it would have angered him. In the earlier days of his recovery, Severus would have smashed it with his fist out of a fit of black, poisonous jealousy more than annoyance. The insect would eventually find its way back out into the world, and he would still be trapped, powerless to leave the sterile walls of St. Mungo's.

It was all monumentally unfair in his eyes, but he had learned to deal with it as he had everything else. He had smashed a fair few flies—and hospital staff, though that was much more in a verbal sense than physical— in his time at St. Mungo's, which was almost well-behind him now, and rightfully so. The road had been difficult, and to say otherwise would have been an obvious lie.

Severus could scarcely remember the days shortly after he had been found in the Shrieking Shack by a third year Hufflepuff student, whose name to this very day he could not recall. He vaguely remembered, almost as if the entire experience had been a dream gone fuzzy with age, a set of startled blue eyes staring down at him and the wand that trembled just outside his field of vision before the world disappeared.

The girl, that much he knew, had hexed him to prevent another great escape—as if the gaping hole in his neck and the puddle of blood fanning out around his head would not have seen to the job—and had set off to find an Auror. By the time she had returned, a throng of Ministry officials in tow, Severus was hardly lucid, dreaming of grotesquely-fanged snakes and a set of red eyes that he could not escape. Another fifteen minutes, he had been told, and he would have suffocated on the fluid that was beginning to well in his lungs.

At first, he thought it would have been easier to die, to leave it all behind, but the fates, as they most often did, paid no mind to what was easy. Severus shifted in his chair, though he knew his discomfort did not fall to the standard issue infirmary furniture this time. It was his earlier memories, and in times such as these, when they somehow managed to weasel their way into the present, that he had no other choice but to face them.

"Do you know that I would have envied you not so long ago?" he told the fly, as if talking to an old friend. The insect crashed into the window again.

Harry Potter, through the guise of Kingsley Shacklebolt, had put a quick stop to the talk of sending him straight to Azkaban, insisting that all was not as it seemed. A team of Aurors had Apparated him directly St. Mungo's after that, and after he woke, two armed wizards stood outside his door for nearly two months.

" _It is for your safety,"_ Shacklebolt had said to him, though Severus knew they would leave the moment his innocence had been proven. Until that day came, however, he was to be watched around the clock like a child prone to misbehaving. It was in those very early days that Severus had developed a habit of naming the flies unfortunate enough to find their way to his room after Potter or Kingsley or the Dark Lord, but that soon lost its appeal. Killing the idea of something proved to be far more tedious and a lot less rewarding than he had first imagined.

Severus continued to watch the fly as it moved slowly and uneasily toward the edge of the glass, as if it thought one wrong move would cause it to vanish. The similarity was almost painful.  _We're more alike, you and I, than I care to admit,_  he thought.

There had been a time when Severus Snape was uncertain of moving forward, fearful of that one wrong move that could bring on a flood of setbacks. It never came, of course, but that was thanks in large part to his Healer. Augusta Barnes had been his primary caregiver and the resident Healer of the Dangerous Dai Llewllyn Ward since he arrived the previous May, and Severus disliked her from the beginning. As fearless as she was blunt, Augusta Barnes told him precisely how it was from the moment he laid eyes on her, some four months after he had arrived.

He remembered that day much more clearly than most, though not because he had opened his eyes for the first time in seventeen weeks, but because that was the day she had barged into his room without so much as an introduction to tell him that he would never be able to leave.

_The damage is far too extensive_ , she had said, in a tone he found infuriatingly indifferent.  _People don't walk away from this, Severus, and it's best you prepare yourself for the reality of the situation_.

At first he believed she carried all the kindheartedness of a Hungarian Horntail, and worked with the same sort of deadly efficiency. Severus had not known it then, and was likely not to have cared if the truth was told, but she had given him exactly what he needed: A harsh dose of honesty and someone to prove wrong.

Looking back, Severus found it hard to resent Augusta even if she had been overly severe with him. She saw in him, more clearly than most, a streak of self-loathing and apathy that, if left alone, would fester into something she could not cure. While she saw the worst in him, she also had sense enough of his potential, and thus chose to be stern, at times even overbearing. Severus could easily recall how he had fought her every step of the way, though that was more out of his own nature than her methods.

Those who did know Severus Snape knew how hard it was to simply get to know him considering he was reserved, mistrustful of nearly every one, and downright unfriendly out of habit. Luckily, Augusta was equally indifferent to all three of those traits and prone to fits of stubbornness that rivaled any mule. More dumbfounding, though, was that he found it a challenge to rattle her. As a result, they fought hard and often, but it had been for the best, and Severus knew that fully now. She had pushed him and, in turn, he had pushed himself, digging into the reserve of stoic resourcefulness he thought had been lost.

The recovery had been miserable, even when Augusta was not barking in his ear every time he turned around. More than that, however, it felt as though it spanned the ages despite only taking a little less than nine months to reach its conclusion. When he regained feeling in his legs—almost three months after waking—he stood, though not without aid and agony. When he could move his feet he took small, lumbering steps, ignoring the traitorous tears that welled in his eyes each time his feet fell upon the floor. When he could step without tiring and support his own weight, he walked until he had blisters on his feet and stitches in his sides.

The fly on the window suddenly caught his attention again as it dashed in the opposite direction of its only means of escape, and at that Severus nearly felt compelled to leave his chair to give the dull creature the guiding hand it desperately needed. It seemed only right to add another link to the chain of empathy; God knew a few had been added in his name by the Healer's hands.

Augusta Barnes had been there every step of the way, tolerated every single harsh word he flung at her or himself, and on those occasions when he had stumbled slightly, figuratively or literally, she had been there to hoist him back to feet and saw to it that he continued down the road to his recovery. Severus had never thanked her for any of it, and she had never expected him to. Regardless of that, the appreciation was still there, hidden in the occasional good-natured barb they would exchange or the ghosts of smiles that they would pretend not to see on each other's faces.

Severus had never considered her a friend, but rather the maternal figure Eileen Snape could have been had the world and his father been kinder. Severus might have admitted, had he and Augusta found themselves in different circumstances and with a different association entirely, that he admired the Healer for her tenacity and her guile simply because they were lost to his mother. This fact was never mentioned to Augusta or anyone else, and it would remain unsaid as long as he had anything to do with it, secretly providing solace as needed.

Pushing that thought aside, Severus went back to the book in his hands, casually casting a sideways glance at the fly when its noise grew tiresome or the words on the page no longer held his attention. This was the sort of game he played himself every night, as he dolefully went through the steps of his routine. His opinions had been different in the beginning, though. It had not been hard to endure the routine he had developed during his extended stay, and, at one point and on a good day, he would have went as far as to say he had welcomed it gladly given the turbulent existence he had managed to escape by the skin of his teeth.

Now, however, with his freedom a little less than fourteen hours from fruition, Severus found the wait monotonous and, above all else, mind-numbing. He had already packed what little belongings he had collected over his nine month stay; a hospital-issue toothbrush, seven rotations of clothing, a few mediocre books purchased from the visitors' shop, a bit of stationery and ink, and small photograph that Augusta had taken of him in secret the first day he stepped outside the hospitals walls since arriving. It was the only thing he owned that was not completely anonymous aside from the boots he had been able to salvage.

Having never truly cared for the sentimental value of things, Severus had almost thrown the photograph away. The image was a simple one, only his silhouette against the fading light as he watched the sun recede on a brisk twilight four months prior. He was sitting upon the ground, his face upturned to the remaining light, staring out into a cloudless, pale, lilac sky. One would have thought, after giving the photograph a cursory glance that it was ordinary, that the form in the background had been carved from stone, unmoving and unchanging. It was not until Severus moved, his shoulders slumping suddenly as he exhaled and his head moving to his hands, that the magic of the photograph was revealed.

Severus had always viewed that one simple movement as a captured sign of weakness, a reminder of how low he had sunk, but Augusta was quick to remind him that it represented far more than that. She had not said it aloud—she never did—but had rather shared her thoughts with a single sentence written upon the back in her swooping handwriting:  _Keep your face to the sun and you will never see the shadows*._

Her words had struck him as particularly profound—she did have a subtle way of encouraging him to see things far less cynically, though he would be loathe to admit it—and for that reason alone he kept it.

The photograph, as well as the rest of the items, was locked away in a small, black trunk that sat at the foot of his bed, and he would often catch himself looking to it, as if to make sure it was not just a figment of his imagination. Even then a smile began to tug at his lips at the prospect, and Severus turned in his chair to give it a proper look. It was not a dream. It was not something he had made up out of boredom or desperation. He was truly leaving, and it was for good. It was a consoling thought, and one that was dashed away far too soon by the familiar sound of knuckles tapping upon the outside of his closed door.

Severus turned his head at the knock, divrting his attention from the black trunk. It was a wonder the staff of St. Mungo's bothered with the customary knocking etiquette. Whether an occupant was decent or not, Healers and Mediwizards alike would barge in with their closed fist still going for the door.

Broad shouldered and short, a young Mediwizard poked his head in his room as he rapped on the door a second time. Severus recognized the wizard as Thomm Curwood, the lumpy shadow that fell behind Augusta. He was her errand boy, and would often be sent in her place if she found it unnecessary or too tiresome to speak to Severus directly.

Curwood shuffled into the room looking anxious, as if he had selected the short stick in some perverse game of whisper down the lane. Severus pretended to go back to the words printed across the book in his lap, but cast a sideways look in his visitor's direction. The wizard was shifting his weight from foot to foot, and after a moment, he cleared his throat.

Severus looked up, deliberately this time, and sighed. If one thing was known of the Mediwizard, it was his lack of nerve. Some called it politeness, but the truth of the matter was that he was as delicate as a field mouse. "What is it, Curwood?"

"I'm sorry to interrupt your evening," Thomm said, his tone painfully adenoidal, "but I have something for you, sir."

Severus closed the long-forgotten book in his hand with an abrupt snap, and the Mediwizard tried to hide the fact that he nearly jumped out of his skin. "From whom?"

"Augusta, sir." Curwood produced a parcel of parchments from under his arm and placed them on the bedside table. "Seeing as that tonight is your last night at St. Mungo's, she wanted you to be prepared to leave right after your meeting tomorrow. Everything in the packet there is just the customary documents you'll need to complete before Healer Barnes can release you from her care."

_Meeting? This is news._ Severus knew his chances of escaping an impromptu meeting were little and less, but he felt as though he should at least give it an honest try. "That's funny, I was under the impression that I would be free to go once you lot had your paperwork." He paused to appreciate the queasy look that had flashed across Curwood's face. "What's the purpose of the meeting? I hardly think Augusta believes me to be one for goodbyes."

"She didn't say, sir." Thomm picked at invisible lint on his sleeve, expertly dodging the question. "However, she did mention that she'd fetch you personally in the morning."

That was met by silence and a scowl. Severus stood, tossing his book in the chair as he walked toward the stack of parchments sitting atop the night stand. Curwood pinched his bottom lip between his teeth and made a studied effort to not retreat from the room as he advanced. It did not go unnoticed how his stumpy, fat fingers lingered on the door latch, but Severus found no pleasure in his unease. The parchments made sure of that.

The stack of wheat-coloured documents was nearly an inch thick and bound at the top with three sturdy prong fasteners. By the look of the pile, it would take a long while to sort through, read, and sign every piece of parchment the hospital deemed necessary to grant release. Severus thumbed through the first few sheets of the bureaucratic red tape, irritated. The clock on the night table only read a quarter past seven, more than enough time to complete the signing given his eagerness to be rid of the place, but that fact aside, Severus was determined to repay Thomm for his earlier lack of disclosure.

"Was it Augusta," Severus asked, picking up the parchments and pointing them at the Mediwizard to punctuate the words, "or perhaps you that thought I had somehow mastered the skill of osmosis?"

Thomm made a sour face and took a solid step back out of reflex. "Sir?"

"How am I to properly see to all of these tonight?" Severus gestured to the clock sitting upon the night stand, his lips set in a thin, grim line. "I would like to sleep sometime tonight, despite what either of you believe."

"The sheets that require your signature are marked for your convenience. There aren't many," Thomm finished lamely. He offered a weak smile, though his eyes were ripe with nervous misgiving, like someone who had found themselves face to face with a venomous snake keen to strike. "Should you need assistance with anything at all, I would be more than happy to help you."

"I'm sure you would, but unless you can add hours to the day, I'm afraid your usefulness has run its course." The parchments hit the tabletop with an emphatic  _whack_ , and Severus crossed his arms over his chest, his expression one of deliberate annoyance. "Now if we're finished here, I have work to do."

Thomm opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words came out. Instead, the stout wizard grimaced and gave a sheepish bow, quickly turning for the door. Unfortunately it was far too quickly. The heel of his shoe caught on the tail-end of his robes, and Curwood stumbled, reaching desperately for the doorjamb to keep from falling face-first out into the hall. The Mediwizard stared back at Severus once he gained his footing, his forehead covered in a light sheen of nervous sweat and meek smile on his face.

This was met with more silence and a glare that rivaled the last, and Severus thought Curwood might have mumbled something oddly familiar to 'good evening' as he scuttled through the door, but the hurried cadence of his voice made it sound more along the lines of 'good riddance.' He found, for the first time in quite a long time, that he was inclined to agree with the oaf.

Severus closed the door, locked it for good measure, and set to tending to the documents. It would be a tedious endeavor, and one that would almost certainly intensify the dull thrum of tension building behind his eyes, especially considering the fact he would be without the aid of his wand. Wands belonging to patients in the Dangerous Dai Llewllyn Ward were kept under lock and key as a precaution, even for those who were not a danger to themselves or others.

He had been tempted to ask Curwood for authorization, but decided the amount of hovering and satisfaction on Thomm's part would far exceed his own benefit.  _I shall have to ask for a Calming Draught before this is over_ , Severus thought as he retrieved the inkwell and quill from the trunk and set to preparing the makeshift workspace.

The hospital room was without a proper desk and chair, which meant he would be using the bedside table so long as his neck could tolerate the strain— and he had a few solid hours of paperwork ahead of him if he gave each page a thorough reading. From flipping through the first dozen sheets or so Severus could see there were parchments detailing the discharge policies, parchments detailing the release of his personal effects, parchments explaining liabilities falling to both the patient and the facility.

Severus pulled the wingback chair up to the small table and sat down with a sigh. The fly, which he had forgotten all about, came to join him, sitting atop the mouth of the generic ink well. He gave the insect a narrow, assessing look and decided the stupid thing actually seemed to be tittering at him, with its two front legs rubbing together in some obscene clap.

He nearly smashed it then, envy and annoyance flaring, but chose to swat at it instead. "Away with you."

The fly shot away in a panic, making a frantic, erratic line toward the window. Apparently that was all it needed to remember how it had arrived inside in the first place. It slipped through the crack and was carried off by the brisk evening wind, leaving him behind just as all the rest before it had.

* * *

* Is a variation of a quote from Helen Keller: _"_ _Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow."_

**Author's Notes:**  Can I just say how  _good_  it feels to finally post something again?! Seriously, I am ashamed of myself for going so long without posting, but real life, in all of its glory, had sank it's teeth into my backside and refused to let go for nearly six months. I've managed to fight it off long enough to bring you the beginning of a new story that is nearly complete. I was going to wait and post the story in its entirety when I finished it, but I have missed fan fiction and the people who read it terribly. That said, updates will occur once a month, and will be toward the end of the month most likely. Of course, as I sit here and type this, I know real life is lurking in the shadows, and it will find me like the hell hound it is, and so I'll just throw out there that this timeline is tentative. This story will see its end, I just ask for your patience as it happens.

This story is written for Thorned Huntress, who has listened to me whine and complain about a great number of things. I hope you enjoy it. Meladara acted as my second pair of eyes for this story, and I could not have done this without her.


	2. Chapter I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severus Snape has been granted release from St. Mungo's following a lengthy recovery, but it is with one simple condition.

 

  
****Characters are property of J.K Rowling and the Harry Potter Universe. Thankfully, she allows me to borrow them for a bit of fun.** **

 

* * *

 

**Silhouette**

**Chapter I**

****  
  
Severus Snape was snoring, and rather loudly at that.  
  
He had fallen asleep sitting upright in the wing-back chair with one leg slung over the armrest and his head pressed into the side of one of the wings. Sleep came for him sometime near the end of the stack of parchments and, after almost six hours of sound sleep, he still held the quill in one hand, as if the Sandman had crept up and caught him unawares. The tine of the quill had come to rest in a most unfortunate spot on the leg of his trousers—the same pair he had been wearing the day before—and a giant blot of ink had managed to seep onto the grey fabric mid thigh.  
  
Severus made a drowsy, indistinguishable noise and swung his other leg over the arm of the chair in a miserable attempt to find some comfort, but surprisingly he did not wake. There had been a time in his life when Severus held a bit of contempt for those who slept easily, for those who closed their eyes and drifted off into their dreams only to wake again rested. He often fell into his nightmares, and would wake during the early hours of the morning with a racing pulse and sweat on his brow.  
  
The dreams were particularly horrible shortly after he regained consciousness, enough so to be dubbed fully-fledged night terrors, and in those days he and his Healer had turned to potions to keep him under. Even sedated, he never woke up feeling refreshed or rested, but rather dragged himself out of dreams each morning feeling half-dead only to find no relief.  
  
He had been quick to blame his episodes on the snake venom still circulating in his system, a natural bodily response to the toxin, but his Healer quickly informed him otherwise. She had not exactly called him mad or depressed, not directly of course, but she had used the Muggle term "post traumatic stress" when she had diagnosed his condition.  
  
 _"What you've experienced is nothing short of traumatic, and it has compromised your ability to cope_ ," Augusta had told him. " _You have unconsciously buried what has haunted you, and you've managed to survive remarkably intact despite it all. You can no longer do that, Severus. You can no longer do that and hope to heal let alone carry on a normal life._ "  
  
Facing his demons, his shame, and his guilt proved to be a challenge, but eventually, sleep came almost every night and lasted longer with few interruptions. As someone who had once had trouble going under with even the strongest sleeping aides, Severus soon discovered that he could fall asleep almost anywhere when his mind was clear.  
  
Severus took a deep breath, wrapping his arms around his torso. He had left the window cracked, and the room carried a chilly bite. His head rested at an odd angle on his shoulder. He still did not stir even though his neck was craned in such a manner that would leave him feeling stiff when he finally woke, but rather curled into himself as much as the modest sized chair would allow. His rest was short-lived, however, as the first knocks sounded from beyond the closed door.  
  
They were faint at first, just a few light raps with the knuckles, but they quickly grew louder and more defined. Though Severus was sound asleep, he was also a very light sleeper, prone to waking up at just the slightest outside commotion. He jolted upright in a mess of tangled limbs at the second forceful smack upon the door, and his feet kicked the nightstand, sending his neat stack of parchments to floor. The parchments scattered everywhere, some going under the bed, others sliding across the tiled floor.  
  
"Oh for God's sake! Hold on, would you?!"  
  
Severus straightened the parchments he could quickly gather as best as he could, and as the rapping on the door intensified, so did his agitation. He slammed the parchments he had managed to collect back on the night table only to have gravity pull them down again as he turned for the door.  
  
"I said hold on!" he snapped just as the door swung open to reveal his Healer standing on the other side.  
  
When she saw him, her smile vanished. "Well, good morning to you, too."  
  
Augusta Barnes was a short-haired, hefty-breasted witch of seventy-five or so years, and always looked as though she was in a state of perpetual contemplation. The glasses she wore were either perched on the end of her narrow nose or pushed up in the spiky salt and pepper hair atop her head. Despite her appearance and the opinions Severus had once held for her, she was a good-humored woman with a take-no-prisoners attitude. Her disposition suited her well, especially well as far as her career was concerned, and Severus's case could bear witness to that.  
  
"You look like hell, Severus," she said candidly, brushing past him. Augusta stopped once inside the room to survey the mess covering the floor. A few of the parchments had been picked up by the brisk breeze blowing through the window and were drifting here and there. A wave of her hand and the window snapped shut. "I see you've seen to the paperwork…"  
  
"Not  _one_  word," Severus said, stooping to gather the sheets. Before he had seized hold of the first page, however, the parchments began to flutter upward and landed neatly in the center of his bed. He looked up in time to see Augusta place her wand back in the pocket of her robes.  
  
"You're welcome," she said, the ghost of a slight smile on her face. "Now, shall we get down to business?"  
  
It took Severus a moment, with his sleep-addled mind, to remember that she was supposed to fetch him for a meeting of sorts. "What's the purpose of this conference?" Severus asked. "Thomm was as helpful as a head cold when we spoke about it."  
  
"That's because he had nothing to tell you," the Healer said, and Severus found that he was not overly fond of her tone. "The details were still being discussed. That said, I'm afraid there has been a bit of a delay."  
  
He did not like the sound of that. "What sort of delay?"  
  
"It's nothing to trouble yourself over. The third party involved has come into a bit of trouble—some nonsense over the cross-continental Portkey her Ministry had assigned. She should be along shortly." The Healer gave him an apprising look and pointed to the ink spot on his wrinkled trousers. "Pull yourself together and I'll see you in a bit," she said, and to Severus's annoyance, she slipped back out the door without another word.  
  
Severus had half a mind to trail after her, demanding to know exactly when he would be allowed to leave, and even went as far as opening the door enough to peek down the hall. She was already gone, lost in the catacombs of offices and patient rooms.  
  
The longer he scanned the hallway, however, he discovered he had neither the desire nor the state of alertness needed to search her out, but instead closed and locked his door once more before retreating into a small loo that adjoined his room. The washroom was modest, complete with a single wall-mounted basin near the toilet, and a stall shower stuck back in the far corner. It was hardly big enough for him, but it served its purpose.  
  
Severus looked at himself in the mirror hanging over the sink—something he never did if he could help it—and was immediately reminded of why. The man in the mirror looked tired, well past the age of thirty nine (he certainly felt older than thirty nine). He squinted at his reflection, noticing the lines that had appeared near the corners of his eyes and the dark circles that he was certain would never truly go away without extensive magical interference.  
  
 _At least the mirror can't agree_ , he thought, and turned on the cold tap. He splashed his face with the icy water and wiped away the excess with a sand-textured hospital towel before brushing his teeth with a spare toothbrush. He would shower when he returned home, without threat of someone barging in and demanding his attention before he had made it out of his pants.  
  
Satisfied with the rushed morning routine, he emerged from the loo and promptly went to the window. Severus threw back the drapes and allowed the winter sun to shine on his face. It was going to be a good day despite the ink-stained trousers, the crick in his neck, and the postponed meeting with a mystery guest… or so he thought.  
  
Unfortunately, but not surprisingly given the hospital's track record of such things, the morning quickly faded into afternoon, and afternoon was dissolving into evening before he was finally summoned several hours later to one of the rarely-used conference rooms located in the administrative section of the Dangerous Dai Llewllyn Ward. The room was as monotonous as the rest of the hospital with its bare, white walls and neutral wood paneling. A large conference table was positioned in the center of the room, and when Severus entered he found he was the only one there, save for a Mediwizard that had been tasked to prepare refreshments. Rease Taylor, or so her nametag suggested, offered Severus a cup of tea, which he declined, and tried to make polite conversation.  
  
The conversation turned out to be one-sided, with the Mediwizard asking Severus questions as she laid out the various biscuits and sweets on serving trays and two different pots of tea. " _…Are you excited to finally go home… Do you think you'll ever return to Hogwarts…_ " When the witch realised she would be more likely to hear the table talk instead, she took it upon herself to answer for him between sneaking bites of food. ". _..I bet you can't wait to get out of this place and start over... Hogwarts would certainly miss you if you decided not to return, Professor Snape…_ "  
  
He passed the time by counting the lines in the wood grain of the table, waiting until she finally grew tired of talking to herself and left. It took another fifteen minutes before the loquacious witch named Rease Taylor gave Severus a disapproving look and withdrew, leaving him alone with the trays sweets and the hot tea.  
  
Once alone, Severus eyed the tea and various glazed and powered sweets and felt his empty stomach rumble. He had turned down the afternoon and evening meals provided by the hospital in favour of eating something that did not taste like parchment when he returned home. He had not, however, anticipated the delay to stretch well into the evening hours, and was now feeling the affect of his stubbornness.  
  
Even more tantalizing, the food on the trays did not look like the standard hospital fair, to which his appetite was grateful. Even the tea with its strong aroma— in contrast to the normal fare of weak breakfast tea—gave him an inkling that Augusta was going out of her way to be hospitable to their mystery guest.  
  
 _They've even dragged out the porcelain china for this meeting._  Severus peered over his shoulder, determined to remain steadfast in his decision not to partake in the frivolous nonsense of sweets and tea  _if_  he had an audience. He was alone as it happened, and he promptly selected a chocolate-glazed wafer topped with coconut shavings and popped the bite-sized morsel in his mouth.  
  
It was easy to see why Rease Taylor had eaten one for every two she placed on the trays. Severus selected another, this one tinged pink with white frosting and little chips of chocolate. That one was strawberry— a flavor he found far too strong and not to his liking, so he selected another chocolate wafer to wash away the unpleasant taste. He had only gathered the wafer between his fingers when the sound of heavy, hurried footsteps echoed from beyond the closed door.  
  
Upon hearing his impending guest, Severus dropped the thin biscuit on the tray and wiped his hands on one of the tea napkins, then hid the incriminating evidence in his trouser pockets. He straightened himself in his chair, making a special effort to look perturbed when the door finally swung open to reveal his Healer. Augusta scanned the room quickly once entering, as if searching for anything that might have been below standards. She had his discharge parchments tucked under one arm and what looked to be his medical file in her hand.  
  
"Oh good," she said at last, "you're already here. I was hoping to speak with you privately before we begin."  
  
"Only seven hours and thirty-six minutes late," Severus was quick to add, glancing down at his wrist as though he wore a watch. "I was told, by you in fact, that I would be going home today. Do you remember that? It was seven hours and thirty-six minutes ago in case you've forgotten."  
  
"Are you finished?" Augusta shuffled around the table, depositing the files in front of the empty seat nearest him. The sharp sound the parchments made when they hit the table told him that she was in a foul mood. "I'm trying to get you out of here as quickly as I can."  
  
"By having unscheduled, unnecessary meetings?"  
  
"Not unnecessary. This is part of your discharge requirements." She produced a single slip of parchment from the bottom of the stack and placed it in front of him. "The purpose of this meeting is to induct you into the Silhouette Initiative. Here is the agenda for this evening, look over it quickly and I'll be back in a moment."  
  
"Silhouette Initiative? What in seven hells is that?"  
  
Augusta released a heavy sigh, her lips curling into a deep frown. "You'll find out soon enough. Now would you read the agenda, please?" The Healer gave the conference room another scrutinizing stare, her eyes landing on the dusting of biscuit crumbs sprinkled on the table, and said, "Have you been eating those sweets?"  
  
Severus glared at her levelly, secretly wishing he would have swiped another one out of spite now that he learned they were apparently off-limits even to him. "That would be the work of one of your minions," he insisted. "I'm surprised there are any left at all."  
  
Augusta made a rather exasperated sound, shook her head, and withdrew from the room as quickly as she had came. And Severus, instead of reading as he had been told, did not hesitate to pick up the chocolate biscuit that had previously tempted him.  
  
Out in the hall he could hear two voices distinctly above the rest. One belonged to his Healer, the other he had never heard in his life. The voice was feminine—so that thankfully ruled out a meeting that included Thomm— and as its owner neared the conference room, its pitch rose to an impassioned volume and laughter spilled forth into like the dreaded waters of a flood. Whoever this woman was, she had already managed to irritate him.  
  
"Severus," Augusta said as she appeared in the door, flanked by the mystery woman, "I would like to introduce you to Zella Shrout. She is one of the many creative minds behind the Silhouette Initiative."  
  
Zella Shrout was a willowy woman with a lean frame and sharp features that appeared to have been chiseled from stone. The witch was all cheekbones as far as he could tell. She overtopped Augusta by more than foot, though Severus suspected her choice of obscene footwear was mostly to blame. Her wiry, auburn hair was pulled back in a loose knot at the base of her neck—the look of a working woman, as his mother used to say—and it aged her by fifteen years at least. Despite that, she had a certain confidence to her, which Severus remarked looked much like arrogance. She gave him a polite, professional smile revealing blindingly white teeth, much too perfect to be natural, and extended a hand in his direction—complete with gleaming red nails that could have easily been mistaken for bloody talons.  
  
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Severus." She had an odd inflection in her voice—American English perhaps—which only accentuated the abrasive qualities of her personality; her hand seized Severus's before he had even come to a full stand, and she gave it a mighty shake. "Healer Barnes has mentioned you, the decorated war hero and all. It's an honour, truly, and I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am to initiate you into the Silhouette program."  
  
Severus fixed her with a deliberately indifferent stare. "I'm sure."  
  
"We are fortunate to have Zella here today," Augusta said in an attempt to draw the focus away from Severus's curtness. "She has been with the program from its conception, working quite closely with some of our most skilled Healers from St. Mungo's to perfect its use as an assimilation program for medical purposes."  
  
The American witch flushed an unflattering shade of crimson. "Augusta is far too kind, I'm afraid. I only take suggestions from those already matched with a Silhouette to those in charge. That, and I find Bonds for those like you, Severus—those who are new to the concept and the magic behind it. "  
  
Severus frowned, uncomfortable by the idea, and the Healer added, "It's her specialty. Bond matching, as it's called. You're in capable hands, Severus. You needn't worry."  
  
"I still fail to see why this is necessary." Severus cast a nasty look toward both women, feeling his blood slowly beginning to simmer through his veins. This is my life, damn it. I choose how I live what's left of it. "I don't need this so-called assimilation service. I don't want it."  
  
"On the contrary, Severus," Zella Shrout insisted. She gave him a pitying little smile and shook her head. "You are exactly the type of person who could benefit most from this program."  
  
Severus took a solid step back and appraised her with deadly contempt, as though she were a bug he could easily squash. "I happen to disagree, Madam," he snapped, defiant. "You are not my primary caregiver, and as such, you have absolutely no authority to say what would benefit me and what would not."  
  
"I understand your frustration," Zella replied, flashing another false smile.  
  
"No, you don't." Severus gave an exasperated sigh and sank into his chair. "I have been here for nine months, I have been without my privacy for nine months, and now, when I am only steps away from walking out of this godforsaken place for good, I'm told I have to become part of some cocked-up assimilation program." Severus turned to his Healer, his only means to escape this nightmare, and said, "I will not have it, Augusta."  
  
Augusta made a face, like she had had the misfortune of passing by a bad smell. "Will you give us a moment, Zella?"  
  
"Of course," the woman answered, her smile widening. "I'll be right outside." The lithesome witch turned away in a flourish, her obscenely high heels clicking as she went, and walked out into the hall.  
  
"I don't want to hear it," Severus warned, not bothering to see if their guest was out of earshot. He hoped she was not, truth be told. "This is a load of bollocks and you know it just as well."  
  
Augusta Barnes descended on him like a malevolent storm cloud. "Would you rather have the alternative, Severus?"  
  
"What alternative? You've yet to say anything on the subject—"  
  
"That's because it is worse, and I knew you'd never go for it!" she shrieked, cutting him off. "My God, you'd think I was asking you to chop off your right hand."  
  
Severus frowned. "I would rather."  
  
The Healer took the seat opposite him, and gathered his hands in hers—a gesture of pleading Severus knew she often employed when she felt he was being unreasonable. He hated that she reminded him of a much better version of his mother. "I am trying to help you, Severus Snape."  
  
"If that were the case, you would leave me be."  
  
The Healer ignored his plea and sat straighter in her chair. "You have two options. The first is Silhouette, and I can assure you it is not nearly as horrible as you imagine it to be. The second, and I'm positive this is something you would rather cut your arm off than do, and it is to open your home to someone from St. Mungo's four days out of the week."  
  
"Absolutely not."  
  
"Those are your choices." Her tone was firm, and Severus hated it. "It would be not only unprofessional of me to let you leave without any form of assistance, but irresponsible as well."  
  
"I don't need—"  
  
"But you do, though you won't admit it." She brushed a strand of his hair out of his face, and he deflated entirely. "Your short-term memory is not as it once was. You still have night terrors and the anxiety episodes. I cannot allow you to leave unless I know you have someone watching over you." She gave him a motherly pat on the cheek as if silently telling him to buck up, and said, "Zella Shrout is a shrew, I'll give you that, but hear her out before you make a decision."  
  
"And if I disagree?"  
  
"Then you might as well unpack your bag," Augusta answered, her face irritatingly placid. "I won't allow you to leave."  
  
And there it is. Severus had wondered how long it would actually take her to play that card—turns out not very long at all so long as he was thoroughly impertinent. He was quite certain he would never like a word of anything Zella Shrout had to say, but seeing as that his release relied on his concession and his cooperation, he was left with no choice but to play along... until he could come up with a better idea, that is. "You make it difficult for me to tolerate you, do you know that?"  
  
"I do it for your own good." Augusta stood, straightening the front of her lime green robes. "I'm going to fetch our guest now, so please try to behave yourself. You'll only make matters harder for everyone involved if you insist on acting like a fusspot."  
  
 _A little honest loathing never hurt anyone_. Severus started to fling back an unsavory remark in retaliation, but his Healer gave him a firm glare before she opened the door and walked out. Severus frowned, a single hand going up in defeat and annoyance. He found he could not gather the effort to complain.  
  
"I think we're ready to begin," Augusta said from the hall. Then Severus heard the other witch's heels click on the tiles as she approached. The sound reminded him of his impending doom, the same way those Muggle bombs would tick down the seconds to destruction. He was certain Zella Shrout was about to detonate an explosive of her own, completely blowing up whatever hope he had of leaving St. Mungo's peacefully.  
  
"Excellent!" The witch trotted into the room and took a seat directly across the table from where Severus sat. She placed the black case she had been carting around on the table and drew her wand from her sleeve. One tap later, the latches clicked open and she began pilfering around inside. Zella drew out a thick, bound booklet of parchments and one small, rectangular shaped box. "Alright, Severus," she said at last, "First order of business: how much do you know about Silhouette?"  
  
Severus yawned, covering his mouth with his hand, then replied with feigned interest, "Apart from the fact I have no desire to become part of it, nothing."  
  
Zella gave him a cheerful smile, undeterred. "That's what I thought. Most people who seem to find issue with it have no understanding of what it is or the good that it brings. Silhouette is revolutionary in terms of magic. Wizardkind has yet to see anything like it." The witch slid the top page off the mountainous stack in front of her and pushed it over to Severus. "As you can see from this general overview, the program was modeled after what Muggles call Artificial Intelligence programs, and when I say modeled I'm using the word in the loosest sense. They haven't a clue what they're doing with it, and we've perfected it in ways the Muggles could not."  
  
Augusta glanced at Severus uneasily, and he rewarded her with a nasty glare. The thought made his skin crawl. " _Artificial Intelligence?_ " he repeated. "How can intelligence possibly be artificial?"  
  
The witch threw back her auburn head and released a high-pitched laugh. "Precisely, Severus! Now you're catching on! You see, that's where the Muggles get it wrong. They have their fancy computer programs that they claim can detect their environments and make informed decisions based on a number of factors. It's all nonsense. True intelligence can't be replicated by gears and bells and whistles. Oh no, it takes real people. It takes magic, and that is why Silhouette is so successful."  
  
"It truly is unprecedented," Augusta remarked, and from her tone, Severus could easily detect her ploy to shovel on flattery by the towel full.  
  
"That it is." Zella reached for the black box and slid it from its lid. "I know what you're thinking, Severus, and I would be lying if I said I did not share those same thoughts at first, but I'd like to show you exactly what I mean."  
  
 _This should be good_ , he thought. The entire notion seemed ridiculous, and though he would be loath to admit it aloud, he was secretly counting down the moments until he could tell her so. "By all means," Severus replied. He gave a curt smirk and folded his arms over his chest. "Enlighten me."  
  
"This is my personal Silhouette portrait," she said, lifting the object from the box. When she spoke, Severus could not help but compare to her a pompous parent swollen with pride for their firstborn. It was an absurd attachment to have with inanimate object.  
  
The frame was clear—crystal, Severus suspected, given the way she held it with an obscene amount of care—and the clean, stylized lines of the rounded edges exemplified the shimmering rectangle of black in its center. Zella held it out for him and Augusta to see, and when she released it, the frame floated mid-air as though suspended by an invisible hand. "Exquisite, isn't it? I designed this one myself, and my personal secretary and dear friend from the States is my Silhouette. Do say hello, Caroline!"  
  
The clear sides of the frame were suddenly illuminated a bright shade of blue, and unexpectedly the image of a young woman, fair-skinned and blonde, appeared where the black rectangle had been. She smiled happily out at the three of them and waved.  
  
"I use my Silhouette as a means of quick communication for work purposes," Zella explained. "If I need to know the name of a contact, or the identification number of a person we employ as a Silhouette, I simply activate the portrait and Caroline is there to assist." Zella, who looked immensely pleased with herself, turned to Severus. "So, what are your thoughts?"  
  
"I think it's preposterous, if not entirely pointless." Severus leaned in closer, as if about to share some clandestine secret and said, "And I can assure you have no patience for pointless things, Madam Shrout."  
  
"He's a tough one, Zella," remarked the woman from the floating portrait.  
  
Severus shot the blonde a deadly look, and she immediately dropped her gaze, red-faced. Severus did not tear his eyes away from the frame, hoping she would look up again so he could give her a double dose of his annoyance. However, as he studied the woman in the frame, an idea came to him, and one he hoped would work in his favour.  
  
"Caroline, is it?" he asked, and the blonde gave him a nod. "Tell me, how do you feel about being at someone's beck and call, or would you prefer I refer to you as a house-elf instead?"  
  
"I am not at someone's beck and call, sir. Nor am I an elf," Caroline answered in a surprisingly cold voice, poorly hidden anger in her eyes. "This is a part of my job, not something I do twenty-four hours a day."  
  
"So all Silhouettes are personal secretaries who punch a clock?" Severus quipped. He was quite pleased to see the beginnings of a frown taking root on Zella Shrout's face.  
  
"They are whatever their Match needs them to be," Zella said before the woman in the portrait could respond. "That's the beauty of the magic behind it. The magic knows what is needed, and it alone bonds the Silhouette to their Match."  
  
"She's right, Severus," Augusta supplied. "From what I understand, the program has several facets currently operational, ranging from assistants, like Caroline there, to those who are employed to be personal tutors to struggling school children."  
  
"And why would I need either of those things?" he demanded, but as he did so, the Healer's true reasons dawned on him almost as quickly as the words had sprang from his tongue. How he had missed it before he did not know, but now the real reason behind this impromptu meeting was clear. It was not about his anxiety; he had learned to manage that part of his recovery well enough. It was not the night terrors either. They came very rarely now, and were mild compared to those he had endured straight off. This was something different. This was something neither of them had any business meddling with.  
  
"I am in that great of need of a nanny, Augusta? Is that it? Severus Snape the miserable social pariah—" Severus cut himself off, feeling a stifling heat rise up in his face.  
  
"You have been through more than any one person should have to endure—"  
  
Severus's fist came down hard on the table. "And I have overcome all of it!"  
  
"And this will help you continue to do so," the Healer said. "You have improved leaps and bounds, there is no doubt in that, but your recovery is far from over."  
  
Zella cleared her throat. "As I understand it, Healer Barnes intends for you to use your portrait not much differently than I use mine. It is really not as bad as you'd think, and it's quite helpful, actually."  
  
"It seems to have escaped me that I've become so weak-minded that I need someone else to think my every thought for me."  
  
Zella Shrout's mouth opened and closed, then opened again though no words came out. The Healer simply shook her head, her fingers working the apparent tension from between her eyes.  
  
"I have had all of this nonsense I can stomach," Severus told them, his expression one that carried all the sweetness of soured milk. He stood without saying another word and exited the conference room.  
  
He had not managed to make it to the end of the long corridor before he heard the door he had just walked through click shut. Severus stopped mid-stride and turned to face the person who was no doubt his Healer, intent on giving her a fair piece of his mind.  
  
Augusta Barnes was faster by far—a surprising thing for her age. "Over the course of your recovery, how many visitors have you had?"  
  
Severus was not expecting her to lead with that. "I don't c—"  
  
"I didn't ask you if you cared," Augusta snapped. "I asked you how many visitors you've had, and before you try to latch onto the idea, neither I nor any of the clods from the Ministry count."  
  
It had never dawned on him before that apart from Kingsley Shacklebolt and his Aurors and undersecretaries, whose visits were few and far between, if not somewhat mandatory, he had not received a single visitor. There had to have been someone he was not bringing to mind, but for the life of him, Severus could not say who.  
  
The early days of his recovery were lost in an impenetrable fog, though Severus was not entirely sure whether the blame fell on his lack of consciousness or his substandard ability to recall information shortly after his eyes finally opened. When he woke there were no flowers or boxes of sweets, no notes or letters wishing him a quick mending. There was not a single person waiting to speak with him that was not there out of some professional obligation. There was only the stench of overcleanliness and the bare grey-white walls of his recovery room. To say that he did not value his peace would have been a lie; Severus equated the speed of his recovery with all of the extra time he had on his hands. It was impossible to see how that was a bad thing.  
  
"I fail to see the point you are trying to make." Severus turned his back to her with the hope that she would disappear when he turned around, and began to pour himself a cup of tea from the nearby serving cart.  
  
"I'm trying to tell you that you have no one in your life apart from your Healer, and it should not take someone of my expertise to see that that is a harmful thing."  
  
The teapot in his hand hit the mobile serving station with a heavy clattering, tepid tea sloshing out of its spout and onto the lace doily upon which it rested. "Spare me your sage advice, Augusta. I'm in no mood for it."  
  
The Healer ignored that. "Severus, this lonesomeness of yours will only lead you to trouble. It will undo the progress you've made over the past nine months. I have seen it happen more times than I'd like to admit, and more often than not, those who most need to reach out to others are those who simply cannot do it."  
  
"And you think forcing me to confide in a complete stranger will help me reach out?" He gave a bitter laugh. "You forget who you're speaking to, it seems."  
  
"I think it will coax you out of the shell you've encased yourself with."  
  
"I don't need anyone, I have never needed anyone."  
  
"To hell with that!" When the Healer's voice rose several octaves higher some passersby took notice, casting the two of them quizzical looks. Augusta seized Severus by the arm and ushered him into an empty patient room, closing the door behind them. "You look me in the eye right now and tell me that your seclusion was not out of necessity. That part of your life is over, Severus Snape, and as soon as you accept that fact, the sooner you can focus on building a normal life for yourself."  
  
Severus did not know what to say to that, so he said nothing at all.  
  
"I am only asking you to give it an honest chance," Augusta continued. "Six months from now, should you still find my motives wrong, I will gladly take whatever coarse language I've earned."  
  
That got her a scathing look from her patient, who for a moment looked as though he would have liked to protest. Instead Severus sank down onto the empty cot, his head in his hands.  _Six months. Twenty-four weeks. One hundred and sixty-eight days_ —he made himself stop there, certain the sheer number of hours and minutes would make him curse the day he had been found in the Shrieking Shack.  
  
"Don't fight me on this, Severus." Augusta sat down on the bed beside him and pushed her spectacles atop her grey-streaked head. "You have no hope of winning."  
  
Severus felt his defiance fall to pieces. She was right after all. He had absolutely no hope of winning unless he was content on furthering his stay at St. Mungo's. There was no use in complaining either, and his current situation could easily testify to that fact. His objections would simply fall on deaf ears.  
  
"I know you've survived far worse. This is nothing." Augusta slid her arm over Severus's shoulder and gave an encouraging squeeze, paying no mind to his sudden silence. The Healer was on her feet after that, turning for the door. "Six months will come and go before you realise. Now come along so we can send you on your way before night falls."  
  
Severus had learned to read the faces of those around him from an young age, but in that moment it would not have taken even a single day of practice to see that Augusta Barnes was not going to take no for an answer. He rose sullenly to his feet and followed her out into the hall.  
  
When they had arrived outside the meeting room, Zella was having an intense conversation with the woman in the floating portrait, an infirmary- issue teacup and matching saucer trailing behind her as she paced the length of the room. "—soon as the Healer is able to get him to cooperate I'll be ready to cast the spell and complete the activation."  
  
"Everything is in place according to the Healer's wishes," the voice from the frame said.  
  
Augusta cleared her throat before Shrout or her assistant could elaborate—as wise as it was intentional, Severus suspected. The three witches had probably discussed him and the best course of action at great length.  
  
Shrout said something unintelligible and the portrait went dark, though it kept its place some feet above the floor as if suspended by an invisible hand. "Now," said Zella, "where were we?"  
  
"I think you were about to prattle on and make a valiant attempt to ruin what's left of my life," Severus said, slowly giving the words time to reach their mark. It did not take long. Zella gaped at him, an odd mixture of shock and vexation that was most unflattering for her face. Augusta gave him a sharp, disapproving look, and said something from the corner of her mouth that mildly resembled the words 'embarrassment' and 'ashamed'.  
  
Severus ignored them both and sat down in the chair nearest the sweets. He picked up two of the chocolate coconut confections, appraised them for a moment, then popped both in his mouth, all while both women stared at him. "Get on with it, won't you," Severus said finally. "I would like to go home."  
  
Zella Shrout seemed to gather her wits, or at least Severus thought that was the case as he watched the stupid expression she wore melt away into one that looked a lot like determination. "Of course," she said politely, though it was a forced sort of pleasantry. Zella handed him another sheet of parchment with the heading: Silhouette: The Ins and Outs and Even Those Pesky In-Betweens, and began reading the document verbatim as he pretended to follow along.  
  
Severus listened vaguely as she read about the history of the program, how far it had come, and the direction its creators had intended it to go (he almost suggested where he thought it and all of those responsible should go, but ate another biscuit instead). The testimonials came next, and those, Severus found, were even more ridiculous than the premise itself. Finally came the laundry list of features, and each of those—which were customizable to any given Match—seemed more pointless than the previous.  
  
"So," Zella said at last, "I'm sure you would like to see your very own Silhouette portrait. It was designed specifically for you, and I think you'll be pleased."  
  
Not bloody likely, Severus thought as she snapped her fingers, only to have a thin, black box materialize out of thin air. The silver ribbons attaching the lid to the base untied and landed on the table below along with the lid.  
  
"This was beautifully constructed with you in mind," said Zella. She gingerly extracted the frame and held it out for him to examine. "Minimalistic and timeless in detail and design, but sleek all the same."  
  
Severus could hardly see how the detail was minimalistic when he finally saw the thing. It was slightly larger than the crystal frame belonging to Shrout, and unlike the clean, stylized edges of hers, it had thick, black, beveled edges complete with ornate carvings. The almost metallic looking picture mat around the darkened rectangle in the center made it look even more preposterous. It reminded him of the frame surrounding the screaming portrait of Walburga Black at Grimmauld Place, and he found he hated it even more after the unfortunate comparison was made.  
  
"You must have questions" Shrout began, placing the frame in front of him. "I would be more than happy to address any misconceptions or concerns before we begin the activation."  
  
"Yes. I do have concerns and several of them in fact," he snapped. "To start, how am I to pay for this?"  
  
"Your Ministry of Magic has already agreed to cover the expenses, per their agreement to assist those who played a substantial role in your Wizarding War. This qualifies as part of your treatment." Zella's lips curled over her teeth in another falsely reassuring grin. "I won't be taking anything from your pockets."  
  
 _Though not for lack of trying,_  Severus thought. Zella Shrout was a businesswoman first and foremost, trained to sell and persuade until the buyer relented, or in his case was forced to relent against his will. Nothing was ever free, and he was starting to believe this was how fate had decided to settle the score, as if nearly dying was not enough.  
  
"I don't have to pay for it, fine." Severus regarded the frame as though it might suddenly spout legs and run up his trouser leg, or worse, reveal the howling matriarch of the Black family, then asked, "But who is to say I won't be matched with a complete lunatic?"  
  
"I don't think—" Augusta began, only to be cut off rather quickly by Shrout, and Severus was pleased to see a pointed look directed at someone other than him for once.  
  
"We screen every applicant, and select only those of impeccable intellect, social skill, and personality." Zella spoke in the voice of someone explaining something plainly obvious to a stupid child. "You have nothing to fear. Whomever you are matched with will be in their right mind, and they will be compatible. "  
  
"And if there is a mistake in the pairing," Severus pressed, "will I have to go through this ridiculous process until you find someone that works?"  
  
"Once the Bond has been made, Severus, there can be no more attmepts," Augusta said.  
  
Zella confirmed the Healer's statement with a grave nod. "The magic is absolute, the magic is certain. The only way for there to be a mistake in the pairing, as you put it, is if you made it so. The magic the program is founded upon, while new, has very old roots. Old magic is temperamental at best, and it is not easy to forgive, especially if one attempts to break the bonds it creates."  
  
"Think of wands and how they behave," Augusta supplied on cue. "Especially when the bonds they share with their owners are tampered with."  
  
"Exactly right," Zella said. "No replacement wand will ever be as good as the wand that chose you above all the rest. Silhouette is exactly the same, and for that reason we do not offer the option of multiple Bonds. There would be no point, because when you harness that age-old magic as we have done the results are amazing. The magic somehow knows what a person needs even before they realise it themselves."  
  
The premise was ludicrous, and Severus made a great effort not to show his contempt, choosing instead to pick up a random parchment on the table and pretend to be mildly interested in its contents. That too, proved to be equally tedious because it turned out to be a much more diluted version of the parchment she had read only minutes before.  
  
"Whenever you're ready, we can begin the activation," Zella told him after a moment. She poured another cup of tea, and filled it with enough honey to draw flies. "The whole process should take less than an hour, as I'm sure you'll want to conference with your Silhouette before you leave."  
  
"I would prefer to do this without an audience if you don't mind," Severus said, casting a sideways glance at what was to become his frame. "I think I can manage it well enough on my own."  
  
The two witches exchanged a look, but Severus went back to his reading before they could hassle him over the matter further.  
  
"We will know if the portrait is not activated." Zella's voice was suddenly hushed, and Severus peered over the parchment to see her looking at the Healer instead of him. "When a portrait is activated outside of a session we receive immediate word from the Silhouette that they've begun their duties."  
  
"I don't think we'll have any reason to suspect," Augusta said with chilly courtesy. "Severus will follow my orders."  
  
"Could you please not talk as though I am not sitting directly in front of you?" Severus crushed the parchment in his fist. "It's offensive."  
  
Zella gave him a curious look. "It's only a precaution."  
  
"I think what you mean to say is a means to guarantee compliance." Severus tossed the crumpled parchment on the table, though he would have liked to have launched it at her head. "But whatever the case, I appreciate neither."  
  
Severus was pleased to see Zella force herself to smile. "If Healer Barnes agrees, I see no reason why that wouldn't work." The witch paused to take an annoyingly loud sip of tea before she stood. "All that's left to do is the bonding spell, and that can only be done by someone properly trained and with authorization."  
  
Severus started to cross his arms over his chest, ready to bombard her with another round of questioning, but Zella Shrout had produced her wand and had it pointed directly between his eyes. He was too shocked to resist, though it would not have mattered had he been expecting it. It was all over in the span of breath, though it seemed to stretch the ages.  
  
Severus felt himself seize up in his chair and the wind in his lungs abruptly expel. He found he could not move, could not think, due to the subtle tremors that started in his feet and stole up his legs. The sharp pain shot through his chest and down his arm next, coming to settle over his left wrist. Severus was certain he was falling into a state of cardiac arrest, but the world went black before he could mention a word about it. He came to seconds later, consciousness hitting him like a hammer, and he sucked in a colossal gulp of air only to have it trigger a coughing fit.  
  
"Not to worry, Severus," he heard Zella say over his hacking. She gave him a forceful clap on the back and said, "What you are experiencing is a natural reaction to spell. You'll be fit as a fiddle in a minute or two." Zella's hand snaked down his arm and grabbed his wrist, her outrageous red nails racking across a stinging welt that had appeared.  
  
Severus jerked his arm out of her grasp and tried to stand, but when his legs failed to cooperate, he settled with pushing the chair backwards a prudent distance with his feet. " _…the bloody hell… you do to me…_ " He was reaching for an indignant tone, but did not quite achieve it due to his wheezing.  
  
Zella ignored his colorful turn of phrase, and spoke to Augusta. "The worst of it's over. He's bound with his Silhouette, and quite strongly from the look of that seal."  
  
Her words went in one ear and out the other as Severus stared down at the afflicted wrist through the flashing constellation of stars wheeling in front of his eyes. There, etched into the shallow skin above his veins, was a bright red weal that spiraled on both ends. It was beginning to darken at the center, the deep shade of violet moving outward. The longer he looked at it, the more Severus realised that it thrummed in time with his pulse, like something very much alive. His insides took a roll forward once the familiar connection was made.  _I've rid myself of one mark only to be bound with another._  
  
"The seal will fade as soon as you terminate your bond, and bear in mind once it is terminated, it is over," Shrout told him when she realised he was giving it a thorough inspection. "You've a double spiral, one of the strongest bonds that can be formed with magic. It's a Celtic symbol, the double spiral. It's often used to symbolize the equinoxes, a day when night and day are equal, perfectly balanced."  
  
"I know what a damn equinox is," Severus snapped. "Tell me what means."  
  
That appeared to strike Shrout as amusing and she grinned. "It means your match is damn near perfect for—"  
  
The crystal photo frame belonging to Shrout made a sudden noise as it came to life, the blue light nearly bright enough to blind. The witch named Caroline looked somewhat discomfited as she stared out at the three of them, and Zella fell silent upon seeing her face.  
  
"I'm sorry to interrupt," Caroline said rather quickly, almost stumbling over the words, "but there is an urgent matter with one of our Silhouettes."  
  
"Not to worry," Shrout gave her wand a wave and the various parchments fluttered back into the briefcase. "We've just finished here. Give me a moment to gather up my materials and I'll see if I can't steal away for a few minutes. "  
  
"You can use my office if you need privacy," Augusta offered. She stood and hastily moved toward the door. "It's down the corridor - first door on the left. You should see my name on the outside. I'll see Severus on his way, and join you shortly to finalize paperwork."  
  
Augusta turned to Severus and said, "Thomm will be along in a moment to deliver your wand and escort you to the Apparition point. Do behave yourself, and congratulations Severus. You've earned it."  
  
Augusta slipped through the door and Severus was left alone to brood.  _It will be as if I've never left_  he thought, staring down at the slick-surfaced portrait in its box. The black frame surrounded by the silver matting gleamed, so much that he could see the room's reflection off its surface.  
  
"Mister Snape," Severus heard from behind him. He turned to see Thomm in the doorway. "It's time to go."  
  
Under normal circumstance Severus would not have allowed the tone in which Thomm ordered him along slide. As it happened, however, he found he did not care, and swiveled around in the office chair listlessly. "My wand?"  
  
"Waiting for you at the Apparition point." Thomm gave his own wand a rather extravagant flourish— much more than was necessary in Severus opinion—and the Silhouette portrait vanished. "Along with your other things."  
  
Not a moment too soon, Severus thought as he eased himself out of his seat. He followed Thomm down the hallway and became acutely aware of the roar that was growing outside. Five wizards, some hospital security and a few Mediwizards, were waiting by the doorway to escort him to the Apparition point. Thomm scurried off before one of them opened the door that led Severus to his long-awaited freedom. When the door was opened, Severus saw the source of the noise he had heard, as a throng of reporters stood between him and his destination.  
  
"Damn you, Augusta," he said as the first flashbulb erupted. Severus knew it was not her fault that the press had learned of his impending discharge; the Senior Healer of the Dangerous Dai Llewllyn Ward had done everything in her power to keep his recovery as confidential as she could manage, but even she could not control those who eavesdropped and sold their secrets—patients, visitors and wayward staff alike—but as he did not know the names of those who had sold him out, Augusta would have to take the blame.  
  
The explosion of light was followed by the thundering sound of voices, and dozens of them if the noise was any indication. Some were screaming his name (the journalists), but most were screaming obscenities. Another flashbulb flared right beside Severus's head, nearly blinding him, and he grabbed an arm belonging to one of his escorts to keep from losing his footing. The floodgates opened not long after that, and the crowd descended.  
  
The throng pressed inward, and some even reached for him, despite the wall of hospital staff flanking him. When they found that they could not touch him, they resorted to throwing the frozen snow that covered the ground. It took one of the icy clods hitting Severus in the face, breaking the skin just below his right eye, for the Mediwizards to not only quicken their pace, but to cast a Shield Charm as well. The charm worked to deflect any projectiles, but their poisonous words slipped though like water in sieve.  
  
 _Traitor… Murderer… Coward…_  
  
Severus had heard it all before, but that did not mean it stung any less. He had thought he had put all of that behind him, but one never could completely lay old wounds to rest. They would always resurface, as most horrible, hidden things do, and when they did, they were often just be as sharp and just as painful as if they were brand-new.  
  
And then, as if to prove the point, someone screamed, "Fuck you, Snape," taking special care to draw out the single syllabic word to an outrageous yowl. Severus glanced back over his shoulder, catching a quick glimpse of the red-faced man he had never seen in his life. The colour was high in his cheeks, his chest heaving as he looked on with something very close to hate written all over his fat face. The man caught Severus looking at him and yelled the phrase again, this time his expression lighting up with satisfaction when he realised he had been heard.  
  
Severus wiped a trailing droplet of blood from his face— he was sure from a distance it might have looked like he was wiping away nervous sweat, and that would not do. He looked straight ahead with his head held high.  _No,_  he thought.  _Fuck you. Every last one of you._  
  
"Hold tight, Mister Snape," one of the nameless Mediwizards yelled in his ear, drowning out the slurs. "We're nearly there."  
  
And so they were.  
  
In the next breath, Severus felt himself being compressed and twisted, slung sideways, then upward in a violent, sickening motion. The street began to flatten and fold in on itself and finally shrink as he and the Mediwizards were spun into a state of nonexistence.  
  
Severus's feet touched the frozen ground a split second later some fifty miles away, and without so much as the sour warning in the back of his throat, he promptly vomited on the front stoop of Spinner's End.  


* * *

  
Author's Notes:   
  
 _While I have your attention, I feel it's necessary to address the elephant in the room, which has been brought to my attention by a few readers. How could I deny Severus Snape the right to walk away from St. Mungo's and refuse treatment his Healer suggests? Well, it was rather easy.  
  
First off this story has nothing to do with the medical field and its rules and regulations, in either the real world of the world J.K Rowling allows us to play in. Yes, it's our God given right to tell people to shove off, and I have seen people do it countless times, but I still decided to ignore it despite my constant fretting over it for a solid month. Let me tell you why.  
  
I left it out because it ultimately has no bearing on the plot. I chose to leave that one detail out because in a world of wizards, witches, giant snakes, and floating picture frames, it seemed mundane, insignificant even. If I let the "real world" influence what I wrote, I would rather not write at all, because it would be a terribly monotonous read, bound by too many rules and other people's opinions of what is considered correct. If honest-to-god authors and writers wrote by that logic, there would not be 7 Harry Potter books—what responsible Muggle or Magical parent would send their child to a magical boarding school that doesn't teach the basics like writing composition and math?  
  
Is it important to have the right to refuse medical care we don't want? Absolutely.  
  
Does that real life right have any bearing in a fantasy story filled with magic and extraordinary characters? Not at all. _  
  
Anyway, I thought I'd post the next chapter before we all found ourselves in the middle of the chaos that is Thanksgiving. I hope you enjoy! This story is for Thorned Huntress, cheerleader extraordinaire and kick-ass friend. Next update to come in a few weeks!  
  
As always reviews are welcomed and greatly appreciated!


	3. Chapter II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severus Snape has been granted release from St. Mungo's following a lengthy recovery, but it is with one simple condition.

****Characters are property of J.K Rowling and the Harry Potter Universe. Thankfully, she allows me to borrow them for a bit of fun.** **

* * *

**Chapter II**

Severus let out a low groan and blinked through the throbbing pain bouncing off the inside of his skull.

When he regained enough of his senses, he found that he was sitting on the top step with his head between his knees.  _Home_ , he thought, the idea floating through his mind trying to find some semblance of meaning.  _I'm home._

Sitting straighter, Severus cradled his head, pressing the heel of each palm into his closed eyelids. The events leading up to his arrival, though dim, were slowly gathering clarity the longer he coaxed himself back to levelheadedness. He remembered the crowds, he remembered the sudden, shocking feeling of nausea, and he remembered seeing his front door. He looked down and saw one of the Mediwizards vanishing the resulting vomit that covered the steps, and recalled that too.

"You're alright, yes?" one of the Mediwizards asked, stooping to look him in the eye. He was a rather tall fellow with a receding blond hair and slightly misaligned pupils. "You've been out of commission for a while, so it's only a natural response to the Apparation." A strong hand clapped Severus on the back, nearly knocking him off the step, and the same voice said, "Hell, Denton over there still turns green at the very mention of it."

"Shove off, Oren," rasped a rather winded voice. "I've got a condition, and besides that much vertigo nearly turns a man inside out."

"You've got a condition alright," answered his companion. "It's called being a pu—"

"I beg your pardon," Severus said with impeccable restraint, "but is there anything else the two of you need to do?" The Mediwizards immediately fell silent, as if suddenly remembering a thing called professionalism, and Severus hoisted himself to his feet, dusting off his trousers as he stood.

"Not unless there's anything thing else you need from us," said the Mediwizard named Oren.

"We tried to bring your personal affects by earlier, you know to make things easier," offered Denton. He pulled a small sachet from his robe pockets and emptied upon the stone steps. Out spilled Severus's black trunk, shrunken of course, and a miniature version of the box containing his Silhouette portrait. They grew back to their original size with a simple, sharp arch of his wand. "We couldn't get in, obviously. You've this place locked down tighter than a Goblin's fist 'round a Galleon."

"Impressive spell work by the way," added Oren. "I would expect you'll need your wand to set it all straight." The Mediwizard dug around in his pockets for a moment before finally producing Severus's wand. "Impressive wand, too," he said, giving it a quick appraisal. "No doubt one of the reasons you're standing here today."

Severus had nothing to say to that, but simply held out his hand to receive what was his. The Mediwizard smiled, and dropped it into his opened hand. "Of course the wand is only as good as the wizard," he supplied.

"Hear, hear," the other agreed.

Oren clapped Severus on the back again, then said, "Well then, Mister Snape, I suppose we'll leave you to it."

"Good afternoon gentlemen," Severus replied, turning without another word.

They Disapparated without the slightest sound after that, and Severus could not have been more grateful. He stared down at the wand in his hand, and for the first time in a very long time, felt relieved. It felt good to have it in his hands, to feel the familiar grit of the Blackthorn wood and the sound connection with the dragon heartstring core. It had been torture being separated from the one thing that had been a constant part of his life since the day he bought it, nearly thirty years ago.

Severus glanced over his shoulder—out of habit more than precaution; the streets of Spinner's End were hardly traversed now, especially at the current hour— then trained his wand on the black trunk and the box. With a single, swift, upward motion of his hand the trunk rose effortlessly from the stoop. Severus turned his wrist slowly, as if testing an old wound, and the trunk and box mimicked the movement, turning upside down entirely. The trunk back to the ground with the slow lowering of his hand, and at the snap of his fingers the lid sprung open, allowing the box to drop inside. At that, Severus felt a truly genuine smile take shape on his face.

The spell work preventing unwanted trespassers was precisely as the Mediwizards had described; impenetrable and still quite strong despite Severus's extended absence. Any Muggle that strayed too close as they passed by would have suddenly found themselves filled with an immense sense of dread that bordered on the primal instinct of self-preservation. It worked surprisingly well on witches and wizards—the effects similar to sticking one's finger in a live Muggle light socket should they try to thwart the precautions.

He closed his eyes and concentrated intently on the spell that would lower the protective enchantments. He repeated the words over and over in his mind before daring to say them aloud. As the words finally left his lips, he moved his wand in a sweeping motion from left to right. If he were being honest with himself, he would have to admit that he felt an embarrassing amount of nervousness as he took the step onto his front landing. He let out a sigh of relief when he felt the solid boards beneath his feet. It had worked. He could at least take some solace in the fact that he had not lost all of his magical ability. He flicked his wand toward the door and it swung open wide to allow him and the objects he was once again levitating to pass through.

The sudden staleness of the air reached out of the darkness of the house's interior and seemed to smack him in the face. The house certainly smelled as though it had been uninhabited for almost a year but there was something else, like he had forgotten to put out the fire in the hearth and it had slowly smoldered itself out. He reached over, tapped the lamp nearest him with his wand, and immediately regretted the decision of turning on the light.

Upon the floor and nearly every flat surface in his sitting room were the remnants of Howlers and year-old copies of the Daily Prophet. Shredded, dingy newsprint, and red envelopes covered the floor, mixed with ash and singed bits of whatever the letters happened to have been near when they finally exploded. Severus looked over rather warily to his favorite chair—a lush, broken-in thing with dark brown leather upholstery and matching foot stool—and saw a hefty pile of soot and bits of grey stained fluff sticking from between the seams. Never once had it occurred to him to the need to block the post in addition to potential intruders. In hindsight, it was a rather large and particularly messy oversight.

Severus surveyed the rubbish heap that now took the place of his living room and saw one Howler that had not yet exploded. He picked it up and examined it, hoping that it would bear its sender's name. To Severus's dismay, however, the seal on the Howler had apparently grown weaker with age and the blood red envelope sprang open to release a cacophony of angry shouting.

" _Snape, you miserable coward!_ " an unfamiliar female voice screamed. " _I've just read Rita Skeeter's book. If half of what she says about you is true, you are no better than the scum between a troll's toes! It's a tragedy—an absolute tragedy— that you get to live free while so many brave witches and wizards gave their lives. I hope what you've done haunts you the rest of your wretched days!"_

With that, the Howler gave another earsplitting shriek of anger and mercifully burst into flame, leaving a fresh dusting of ash covering his shoes.

"Well, fuck," was all he said, and tapped the lampshade again as if the abrupt darkness would make it all go away. Severus stood there in his darkened parlor for a long moment contemplating the ringing silence the Howler had left in its wake, then finally turned for the kitchen. Truth be told, he had no idea what to do next, so he decided to do the one thing that always made sense to him, and that was make a fresh pot of tea.

The kitchen was, much to his surprise and relief, free of any soot of singed debris, but had its fair share of dust. He swiped his fingers across the table, tracing a semi-clear path through the grime, and knew the following day would involve a hideous amount of cleaning. "But tea first," he insisted aloud, and began gathering what he would need.

It had been almost nine months since he had a proper cup of tea, but it did not take him long to fall into the familiar rhythm he found when brewing in his very own kitchen. There was something oddly therapeutic in the preparation. He did not have to think about the process, but rather let his hands lead him through the motions as they had always done in the past.

Severus stood at the cooker listening to the sound of the kettle tick as it heated. The silence cleared his head, made him see things less cynically—which was rather hard at the moment, considering his entire day seemed to have risen up from some heinous pit of hell. He did not feel angry about the unexpected mess, the Howlers, the numerous delays of the day, or even Zella Shrout and her ridiculous Silhouette program, but comfortably numb. That surprisingly brought him a great deal of satisfaction.

Severus took a moment to survey his home and made a mental list of things that he would need to do now that he was back. First on the list was to do something about the mountain of red and white confetti that littered his floor. He had never been a particularly well-liked person to begin with, he was aware of that. He was also aware that people were going to be angry with him over his involvement with the Dark Lord even though they had no idea as to the whole story. He had failed to realize, however, the sheer quantity of people that would go through the trouble of informing him of the disdain personally.

_With the Dark Lord vanquished, I may well be the most hated wizard in Britain_ , he thought. He recalled what the Howler had screamed at him minutes prior and his thoughts turned to the book Rita Skeeter had penned about him.

He had been recuperating in St. Mungo's when he first heard of  _Snape: Scoundrel or Saint_?. Despite never laying eyes on the book personally, Severus was sure which of the two titular portraits Skeeter had chosen to paint of him. His tea kettle whistled loudly, but Severus had already decided that he would need something a little stronger than Earl Grey to make it through the evening. He left the kettle of boiling water on the counter and walked to his liquor cabinet to fill his empty mug with Ogden's Old. He raised the mug high in mock salute and said aloud, "Here's to you, Rita, you miserable cunt" as he downed his drink in one swallow.

Severus's toast was followed immediately by the arrival of an unexpected visitor. A tawny owl appeared at the kitchen window and began pecking away at the glass most incessantly. Annoyed, Severus raised the glass and took delivery of a rolled up piece of parchment. After he had shooed the bird away, Severus unrolled the message.

_Severus,_

_I'm sure you're quite busy settling in, but it is of the utmost importance that you activate your portrait_ _tonight_ _. Zella and her team cannot complete the registration process unless your portrait is synchronized with the one belonging to your Silhouette. This is important, so don't ignore me. If I hear from Zella tomorrow that your portrait has still not been activated, I won't hesitate to pay you a visit to see that it's done properly._

_If not for me, do it for yourself._

— _Augusta_

"Not even through the bloody door fifteen minutes…" Severus crushed the parchment in his fist, and launched it down the darkened hall leading to the sitting room. Rather than retrieving the box containing his portrait, he reached for the bottle of Firewhisky and poured himself a liberal amount. "You can sod off as well, Barnes, you and your Silhouette portrait."

There was a sudden commotion coming from the dark sitting room, and Severus nearly choked on his Firewhisky. The muffled noise echoed throughout the empty house, a sharp pounding of footsteps or perhaps a fist upon a wooden door.  _The crowds have come to run me out of town on a rail_ , he thought, not caring much for that particular scenario. Severus could not properly recognize the sound, but it seemed as though someone or something was trying to burst its way out of the wall. With nothing better to do, and the childish urge to hex someone to oblivion, he drew his wand and eased himself down the hall in search of the noise's source.

His feet managed to carry him solidly for a few strides before they connected with a hard, rectangular object and sent him barreling forward to catch his balance. Severus spun around once he found his footing to see his black trunk—the same trunk he was certain he had left sitting by the door when he arrived. He took a cautious step back only to have the trunk lurch forward as if kicked by an invisible foot.

"What the devil…"

He almost nudged the latch with the toe of his boot but thought better of it. Instead, Severus took another step back and watched with a fair amount of unease. The trunk gave an abrupt heave toward him a second time, stopping just a few feet shy from where he stood. This time, curiosity won the battle against common sense and self preservation, and he released the single latch from its hook with a wave of his wand. The lid flew open at once and up rose the black box containing his Silhouette portrait. Severus looked at the velveted box unhappily, as if he had only discovered its primary function was to cause him unimaginable misery.

The box floated closer to him, coming to hover within arm's reach, and he suddenly understood the concept of artificial intelligence as Zella Shrout had described it. The thing was sentient or at least semi-sentient as far as Severus was concerned, and he had just unwittingly activated it, though how he had achieved such a feat was still lost to him. He made a mental note not to toss the instruction manual Shrout had given him into the rubbish bin as he seized the box from midair and slid the base from the lid.

Freeing the contraption from the box, Severus held the frame to the light streaming in from the kitchen to give it a proper inspection. There was no sign of life other than his reflection in the shiny, black center, but it felt aware in his hand. More than that, the double spiral marring the flesh above his wrist thrummed as though a live current was coursing through it. Without realising what he was doing, or thinking of the possible consequences, his left hand took the frame from the right, and in that moment several things happened at once.

The most noticeable of those things was the unyielding and completely involuntary grip with which his hand grasped the frame. In spite of his initial panic and struggle, in spite of the fierce aide his right hand tried to provide, the fingers of his left would not let go. The second thing, which quickly moved to the forefront of his mind, was the throbbing ache that was beginning to surge around the mark on his wrist. The double spiral swirled slowly, almost hypnotically on his skin until it started to dissipate, following the veins running down his hand and through the fingers clutching the frame.

The frame started to tremble—it might have been his hand, but Severus could not truly tell—until his entire left arm was quaking from the force.

Then, as if he had simply imagined the entire ordeal, everything stopped.

The ache in his wrist and hand lessened, and Severus's fingers relaxed on their own accord. The frame, which did not fall to the floor when he released it was left floating rather listlessly in front of him. The urge to blast it to bits was difficult to control, but the prospect of going back to St. Mungo's to face Augusta should he destroy the thing was even more overwhelming. Instead, he gazed indignantly at its black surface, trying to decide what to do next.

He did not have to wait very long at all. A thin whine erupted from the portrait and a white light flared around the edges. The surface was no longer black, but slowly glowing brighter and brighter as the seconds passed. Severus had no idea who he expected to appear in the frame, but it certainly was not the image of the person starting to slowly come into focus.

The woman in the frame was fair in complexion. She had kind features and dark hair, complete with deep-set, blue eyes, and a set of rounded lips. As the image sharpened, he could see that the woman's bottom lip was pinched between her teeth, though Severus could not help but notice that it was out of nervousness. She was completely foreign to him, and given the softness of her face, younger as well—perhaps in her mid to late twenties if he had to venture a guess.

He wondered if she was doing the same to him, studying his face, trying to decide if she recognized the person staring back at her. If she was from Wizarding Britain she would have had to have lived under a boulder for the last twenty years not to know who he was, especially given the press he received following the end of the war. If he were even remotely close to the age he thought she was, Severus would have undoubtedly taught her during his tenure at Hogwarts.

"Hello," she said. "Please call me Adelaide." Her voice was quiet, but it carried an unmistakable touch of warmth and sincerity, like she was eager and perfectly willing to talk to a complete stranger. It was terribly uncomfortable, if not irritating.

_Adelaide_? Severus was almost certain he would have remembered a name like that; it was not very commonplace, even in the Wizarding world. "Adelaide what?" he demanded.

"Forgive me," the raven-haired witch said. "My name is Adelaide Harlowe." She smiled, revealing just a hint of her teeth and the subtle gap between the two in the front. It somehow made her look younger, innocent even. "What may I call you?"

_Adelaide Harlowe_. The surname, Severus found, was even less helpful, but what he did know about her was exactly what he feared. She was far too keen for her own good and a complete and utter stranger. Add to the mix that she was most likely ten years his junior and the opposite sex, and he was certain they have little to no common ground.

"You will call me Mister Snape," he told her, and even to him his voice sounded harsh. "This arrangement, as I'm sure you've been told by your superiors, is not something I have agreed to willingly. Like it or not, here we are, and we have no other choice but to see this farce to its end. I am supposed to open my home to you, to see you as a companion of sorts, and I find no advantage or merit in either of those things. Don't expect me to call upon you, and don't seek me out." Severus paused, searching for any hint of a reaction, only to find nothing giving away her displeasure, her intimidation, or her shock. She simply let him talk and she listened. "I'll do whatever is necessary to keep from going back to St. Mungo's but nothing more."

"The program logs the number of hours our portraits are active and synchronized, Mister Snape," Adelaide said, her voice calm and collected despite his discourtesy. "I'll see that we meet the minimum requirements prescribed by your Healer. No more, no less."

"If it were possible to do less, I can assure you I wouldn't hesitate."  _It isn't likely we have much in common to fill the imminent silences we're both about to endure,_  he almost added, but decided against it in the end.

The witch smiled a smile that caused her oval face to go from ordinary to radiant in an instant, and Severus looked away abruptly to keep from staring at her. "I do hope to change your mind."

"If life has taught me one lesson, Miss Harlowe, it's that hope very rarely makes what we want so. You'd be wise to remember that." Severus stalked off toward the sitting room, leaving the portrait floating in the hall and the unfamiliar Adelaide Harlowe staring after him.

Severus found he was undergoing a small internal struggle upon entering the sitting room. The prospect of dealing with the mess and possibly finding another unopened Howler in the process was off-putting; he found manual housework tedious at best, and knew with certainty that the magical properties of the Howlers prevented the use of a simple Vanishing Spell. Still, that made no difference in the cold practicalities of the situation. It was either make small talk with a complete stranger or use manual labor as an excuse.

" _Incendio_ ," Severus mumbled, the words escaping him sourly, and the remnants of the dried logs in the fire box were ablaze. He scrutinized the disarray underfoot for a long moment, and decided it looked almost manageable in the muted firelight. Rolling up his sleeves, he set to work with only the solace of knowing it would buy him time to think of how to address the issue of the unwanted guest still floating in the hall.

Fireplace shovel and brush in hand, Severus was quickly reminded of how uncompromisingly plain his home was once the soot and debris were swept away; the sun and age faded carpets covering the floor, the threadbare sofa with its musty, uncomfortable cushions, the rickety table whose top was littered with crescent shaped water stains. This was a pitiful sight, he knew, but it was all he had left.

Severus strode over to the fireplace, dumped the shovelful of ash, singed carpet fibers and parchment into the fire box and then stood very quietly and gazed into the flames. The double spiral on his wrist ached relentlessly. The emotional numbness he had felt only minutes before—relished even— was beginning to wane, and in its place the misery of his current situation seemed to rear up in front of his eyes.

Hardly aware that he had moved, Severus found himself standing next to his chair. He gathered the grey fluff protruding from the damaged leather upholstery between his fingers and carefully tried to tuck it back where it belonged. Each time he withdrew his fingers, he only seemed to dislodge more of the stuffing or damage the broken seam further. That simple, seemingly unimportant action was all it took for the faint signs of an impending panic attack to descend upon him.

Severus sank to his knees, his hands jutting forward to catch his balance. He could feel the heat rising high in his face, the trembling that was slowly beginning to work its way upward from the soles of his feet. Augusta's voice was suddenly in his head, as clear and stern and forceful as if she had been sitting directly beside him.

_A chair, Severus? You're going to let a popped seam reduce you to whatever this is_?

He buried his hands in the layer of burnt parchment covering the floor and forced his eyes shut.  _It's not just a seam,_  he thought, trying to rationalize the episode.  _It's not being able to fix this… How am I_ …"How am I supposed to mend my life when I can't— "

"Mister Snape?"

The words died on his tongue, and Severus turned slowly to see the portrait floating in the shadows of the hall. The young woman looked ghostly in the frame, her eyes fixed on him intelligently though somewhat cautiously. The portrait floated forward steadily until it crossed the threshold of the sitting room. They stared at one another, unnerved and apprehensive before Adelaide finally spoke.

"Are you well?"

"Fine," he managed to articulate, not daring to look her in the face. His subconscious, all the while, was still entangled with the unexpected surge of panic.

"I beg your pardon," she pressed softly, "but you look the furthest thing from well at the moment."

Severus said nothing and kept his line of sight level with the top of the frame, certain he would die from the look of pity he would find in her eyes. For a few moments there was silence, except for the thumping of his pulse in his ears and the crackling of what wood remained in the firebox.  _What the hell is wrong with you…_  he thought, watching the glow from the portrait encroach further toward him.  _Pull yourself together_.

"Should I send for someone?" Adelaide asked after a while, and those five words had an effect on him similar to being doused with iced water.

"No!" His head snapped up, and he noticed Adelaide's curious gaze roaming over him. Severus started to stand slowly, as though he had just found himself face to face with a dangerous animal. Thankfully, the quaking in his legs had subsided a great deal; he could hide it easily enough, blame the unsteadiness that remained on his extended convalescence if need be.

Adelaide's expression hardened; the corners of her mouth drawing up in a thin, skeptical line. "Are you certain?"

"Yes," he answered in a sudden flash of irritation, and when the girl in the portrait did not respond he went on. "Please, I only need a minute." Severus gestured toward the mess that remained, in a last desperate attempt to draw her attention from him to the state of his sitting room. He lowered his head, concealing his face, and wiped away the anxious sweat that had formed on his brow.

Severus eyed the shovel and brush lying beside the chair, then shifted his gaze to the floating frame and saw that the girl's expression was grim. He picked up the wrought iron tools and began to sweep away pile of parchment without really concentrating on the task; he was waiting, dreading the onslaught of questions that were sure to follow her notice of the debris and disarray.

"Those are letters," she said at last, her voice becoming brittle.

He did not reply, but it would not have made a difference; she figured it out soon enough.

"Howlers—all of them—" Adelaide looked about the room, her eyes never lingering in the same spot for too long, as if she had accidentally glimpsed a part of him she had not been meant to see. "There must have been hundreds of them," she said, making a feckless attempt to hide her bewilderment. "But why?"

"This is the embodiment of nearly nine months of hatred," Severus said before he could stop the flow of words. He emptied the overflowing shovel into the firebox and set to working on another pile to keep from looking at her as he spoke. "Bitterness and resentment flows deep."

"I don't understand—"

"People always want someone to blame, don't they? People need a remedy, a solution. Anything to help them deal with their own guilt or loss. Someone has to take the fall, someone has to become the villain so that others can feel vindicated for what they've lost or whatever they did or did not do." Severus chucked another shovelful of debris into the firebox, disgruntled by the sudden soliloquy, then fell silent. Why was he telling her—a complete stranger—any of this?

"But you were cleared of all charges," Adelaide persisted, which told Severus she knew who she was dealing with after all. "You were even awarded an Order of Merlin. First Class."

"But I lived, Miss Harlowe," Severus snapped, banging the brush roughly against the shovel, as though to show his annoyance. "People vilify what they do not understand, and as a witch it shouldn't be hard for you to understand that unfortunate fact. The general public does not understand or know half of what I had to do, and those that do know don't care, because of what I did to see the farce to its end." He almost made mention of Skeeter's poison-penned book, but decided that would open far too many doors that he preferred to keep shut.

"That… That is ridiculous," she protested. It was not hard to tell she was grasping for something to say in retaliation, the look on her face said it all. "That isn't—"

"That is life," Severus interrupted, this time his irritation more subdued. He propped the shovel and brush on the tool rack and regarded the frame and the girl inside. He had said too much to her already, and he had let the situation arise in which she felt she was free to ask him questions about personal things that he had no intention of discussing with someone he trusted, let alone a stranger.

_I ought never to have indulged her prying_ , Severus thought, and resolved right then, as she watched him intently with those ridiculously considerate blue eyes, that she need not think it could become a habit. "How is it that you're able to manipulate the frame?"

Adelaide seemed to be thrown by the sudden change of topic. She blinked several times, as though to clear her head and said, "I'm not sure what you're referring to."

"The fact that you can make the portrait move about," Severus clarified, his tone accusatory. "I certainly didn't invite the thing in here."

Adelaide gave a thoughtful nod, taking the cutting remark in stride. "It just happens. I can think certain things, like moving across a room, and your frame, the one you see me in, responds accordingly. It's impressive magic," she added as somewhat of an afterthought, and grinned at him.

"It's an invasion of privacy," Severus answered, his voice flat and deliberate. He had meant for the words to sting, had hoped they would get the point across and save them both the awkwardness of keeping up with the charade.

Adelaide gave him a level look, which Severus found irritating and said, "I understand this situation is not to your liking, and if I have offended you in some way I apologize. However, you are not in this situation because of me, Mister Snape. I do wish you would give me a chance."

"I don't want to give you a chance. Don't you understand?" Severus rubbed at the side of his head as though he had developed an intense and unexpected migraine. "I may not be in this situation because of you, but I still have to deal with you despite my blistering desire for you to be elsewhere."

That shut her up, and Severus wasted very little time taking the opportunity to escape from her once more. He stalked off toward the kitchen, only casting a half-hearted, sideways glance in Adelaide's directions as he passed, and immediately wished he would have kept his eyes off of her.

The remark had cut a little too deeply it seemed, and her subsequent expression gave him a horrible chill. She looked on the verge of tears, her mouth hanging slightly ajar from the initial blow of his words.  _It had to be done_ , he told himself, though it did little to quell the growing feeling of shame in the pit of his stomach. No, only Firewhisky would see to that properly.

He went straight to the vintage bottle of Ogden's Old sitting on his liquor cabinet and took a rather impressive swig straight from the bottle. Severus knew he ought not to drink it, had even been advised against it during his extended stay at St. Mungo's, but he also knew nothing else would ease his agitation the same as Firewhisky.

Against his better judgment, he poured himself a mug - neat, the only way someone with even a modicum of self respect would drink something as pure as Ogden's Old. Just as the harsh, amber liquid touched his lips, however, Severus was startled by her voice coming from over his shoulder.

"Why do you do that to yourself," Adelaide asked without even the slightest attempt to hide her disapproval. "It's a vile, poisonous drink that turns even the most respectable men incorrigible."

Severus regarded the mug in his hand as though he were looking at it for the first time, then looked to the witch in the floating frame, whose blue eyes studied him with sharp seriousness. There were still faint traces of hurt on her face—the colour high in her cheeks and the glistening tear track she had not fully succeeded in wiping away— but he refused to think on any of it. He raised the glass to his lips to take another gulp, grimacing as the liquor scorched a burning trail down his throat and said, "Because there are things inside me that I need to kill."

He may have been on his way to a state of solid drunkenness, but Severus knew he had said too much the moment the whisky-soaked confession slipped his tongue. Still, he found he had very little energy to care. He was nothing to her, and she was even less to him.

"Mister Snape, please—"

"Leave me be," he said, the words a low hiss.

"If that is what you want." Adelaide looked at him for a moment, as if patiently waiting for him to reconsider what he had said. "Is that what you want?"

"Yes, I would like some peace and quiet."

"It will be quiet, but you won't find peace like this," she was quick to say, and Severus found himself searching for any hint of pity or judgment in her voice. That would have been the perfect escape, her harshness, her cynicism. Perhaps it was the alcohol and fatigue already toying with his perception, or perhaps she was simply the quintessential essence of patience—he could not really put a finger on the true culprit—but whatever the case, he found no such escape. Somewhere, buried deep down inside of him, where the rational side of his mind had gone to hide, Severus was sure there was truth to what she had said, but who was she to tell him that?

"I can't promise that I'll be able to solve all of your problems," she went on, skillfully ignoring the deep scathing noise she received in turn, "but I can promise you that you won't have to go at them alone."

There was a moment of cold silence before Severus drew a deep breath to clear his head. "And how do you intend to do that exactly? What could you possibly have to offer me? I am not some case to figure out, Miss Harlowe, despite what your insipidly dimwitted supervisor has led you to believe. And if you think for one moment that you will be more help than hindrance, then you may very well trump Zella Shrout in stupidity, which is a true feat in and of itself." Severus downed the Firewhisky, then slammed the empty coffee mug against the liquor cabinet with an emphatic smack. "Do us both a favour and leave me the fuck alone."

The lingering pause was suffocating, and for a moment, Adelaide's face twisted in a manner Severus found difficult to witness. He had seen it countless times in his tenure as a professor, even more times in his stint as a Death Eater. It was the grimace of pain that came from beating back an onslaught of angry tears.

"Very well," Adelaide answered in a biting, impersonal voice. "Have a pleasant evening, Mister Snape." Her image began to shrink and fade into nothingness. Blackness soon took over the center of the frame, and as Severus's portrait gave a tiny  _ping,_ sounding the deactivation of her connection, it fell from its suspended height to the floor.

The sound of it clattering across the hardwood was the sweetest he'd heard in a very long time.

* * *

Author's Notes: How on earth are there only twelve days until Christmas? If you lovely people are anything like me, you've waited until the last possible minute to make any preparations. I know these next few weeks will be absolute mayhem, so I thought I'd release the next chapter a touch early. I hope you enjoy! This story is for Thorned Huntress, cheerleader extraordinaire and kick-ass friend. Next update to come in a few weeks!

Also, to those of you who have been following along with  _The Beginning of Truth_ , I have a very happy surprise coming in the next week or so. :)

As always reviews are welcomed and greatly appreciated!


	4. Chapter III

**Characters are property of J.K Rowling and the Harry Potter Universe. Thankfully, she allows me to borrow them for a bit of fun.**

* * *

**Silhouette**

**Chapter III**

Severus woke the following morning sprawled across his bed, an empty Ogden's Old bottle in the crook of his arm, and one boot still on his foot.

He had had his fair share of hangovers in his youth, but he was certain this particular one put all the previous to shame. Severus moved to dislodge the bottle's neck from under his back, but found he was not willing to do much else on account of the sudden, sharp pain that brought forth a flashing constellation of stars before his eyes. He pinched his eyes shut, while his fingers worked in vain to alleviate the pressure headache building in his temples.

The best course of action at the present moment, he decided, was to simply lie there until he found it in him to do otherwise. Severus toed off the remaining boot with considerable effort, then pulled the bed linens over his head to block out the light streaming through the bedroom window.

"You've brought this on yourself," Severus said aloud, and winced at the sound of his own voice. He threw his arm over his eyes and took a deep breath. That somehow made the migraine rattling his brain inclined to behave, if only for a moment. In that infinitesimal span of time, when Severus did not feel as though a hot wire was embedded in his forehead, the events of the previous day somehow managed to weasel into his thoughts.

He saw the girl clearly as well as the look of utter shock on her face when he had told her, in the simplest terms, to fuck off. It seemed like the thing to say at the time, the alcohol and his bad mood dismantling what civility he possessed entirely, but now if the mid-morning light and throes of a particularly vicious hangover, it seemed a harsh thing to say. Severus could not imagine why he had not received a reprimand from Zella Shrout or worse, Augusta, for acting in the manner which he did. They were either discussing at great length what measures were to be taken, waiting for the most inopportune moment to dole out his decided punishment, or Adelaide Harlowe had kept her mouth shut about the whole confrontation. He considered the assortment of possibilities again, and was a little unnerved to find that the third option was not that ridiculous.

The question was why.

Severus heaved a sigh, tossed himself over on his side and pondered this, only to find his thoughts led him in a direction he did not like. Successful completion of the Silhouette Initiative—and ultimately his freedom from St. Mungo's—not only required his compliance, but the cooperation of his Silhouette as well, and from the manner in which Shrout had spoken of it, there was only one opportunity, one Silhouette to be bound to, one chance to for it to ever be successful.

Zella Shrout's words swept through his mind and the fog that the alcohol had left behind, cold, clear, and damning.  _The only way for there to be a mistake in the pairing is if you made it so._

Severus held the image of Adelaide in his mind, saw her face in flashes, and it was like a taking a blow to the chest. Had he just made it so? Had he, in his temper, shredded that single golden ticket out of St. Mungos? That was a sickening thought, and he realised he was going to have to get out of bed, as he could not stand the notion of lying there any longer only to speculate.

Severus threw the duvet back and put his hands over his eyes when the light of the new day smacked him in the face. He scrubbed away at what unconsciousness lingered and exhaled a thin, frustrated breath. His head felt like someone had closed it in a door, and Severus fought back the incredible urge to vomit once he managed to stand. He felt wrung out, stiff-jointed and sore. The double spiral on his left wrist throbbed along with his head, an ominous metronome of sorts. Severus scratched at it absently, and shuffled his way toward the loo filled with a creeping sense of unease, maybe even shame.

He made his way out of the bedroom and down the hall, realising along the way that he really should have waited to gather more of his bearings before trying to get his legs to cooperate. He kept drifting toward the wall, sometimes putting out a hand to steady himself, but he made it to the lavatory door unscathed.

The washroom was without a proper window, only a narrow slit filled with blue stained glass that depicted a rather crude rendition of a fox drinking water from a flowing stream. It was an ugly thing, but it blocked out the sun's rays, casting the modest space in a dingy blue light. Severus could appreciate that much at least. He did not bother flipping on the light switch that would have brought the three naked incandescent bulbs above the vanity to life; that would have been too much, he decided. And besides, there was enough light coming through the little blue window for him to find what he needed in the medicine cabinet.

Being Potions Master had its perks and having a fully stocked supply of draughts, balms, and elixirs, was one of them. Severus, as any responsible undercover agent would, had kept a substantial supply of potions on hand during the war, ranging from Veritaserum to Bruise Healing Paste. He was certain that there were a few phials of Pain Relieving Draught hiding amongst the array of bottles and tins in the mirrored cupboard. Severus opened the door, grimacing at the prolonged whine the rusted hinge gave in protest. He made an intense effort not to look at his reflection in the mirror; he felt like had been dragged through the seventh sanctum of hell, and therefore knew he would look the part without needing to see proof of it.

The cabinet had been bewitched years ago by his mother to accommodate a large quantity of items, and as such, the back of the cupboard extended at least a foot past the point physics should have allowed. The cupboard supported three shelves as well as a rack hanging from the top. The deep-set rows were crammed with a great number of bottles, phials and the occasional Muggle hygiene product. Though somewhat dingy, the items were still arranged exactly how he had left them, which meant the Pain Relieving Potion would be somewhere on the middle shelf for easy access.

The pounding in his head made it difficult to think about anything else, but Severus managed through squinted eyes to find four dumpy, dust-covered bottles, each displaying the name of the potion on the labels and the brew date:  _Potion No. 058 Pain Relief; Monday, the twenty-ninth of September 1997_.

 _Roughly one year and six months aged,_  Severus thought, carefully running through the calculation. He contemplated this number, though fleetingly. It was a long time for a potion to sit in a cupboard, especially one in a drafty washroom, but he was desperate for relief and tried his luck anyway.

Had he been more alert, he would have taken it as a warning when the cork on the first bottle refused to pop, sealed shut like a lid on one of his father's screw-top Kilner jars used to contain his personal brand of poison. Even still, it took several failed attempts before Severus grew tired of the physical exertion and lumbered back into his bedroom to retrieve his wand. With one well-placed spell and all the concentration he could muster, he vanished the cork from the bottle.

It was like running full speed into a brick wall, or being submerged unexpectedly in freezing water. The sudden sickening smell was enough to knock the wind from his lungs. Severus staggered backward, holding the bottle away from him with one hand, the other pressing the hem of his button down to his nose to block the odor.

The thick, puce-coloured glass had concealed the muck within, but there was no escaping the reality of it now. The potion was beginning to coagulate, and horribly so. Suppressing the urge to dry heave, Severus returned to the washroom, turned on the tap and dumped the tainted mixture in the sink basin. It swirled in the porcelain bowl, an iridescent kaleidoscope of muted colors before the cold water washed it away, and thankfully the smell along with it. He tried another, and another, and finally the last, but each opened phial yielded the same results.

Ruined. All of them ruined by age.

Severus stared at the last bit of tainted potion splattered across the basin and without thought roughly slammed the cabinet shut. The door bounced back from the force; the mirrored façade bowed and shattered. Along with the splintered glass, several different containers rained down from cupboard, having become dislodged.

The sound of the heavy bottles hitting the porcelain sink, shattering once they hit the floor, sent painful reverberations through his skull, as though a rogue Bludger had hit him in the side of the head. In that precise moment, Severus considered going back to his bed and sleeping the day and this current manifestation of hell away, but an intact bottle at his feet caught his attention. He stooped to retrieve the container, careful not to fall over from the vertigo.

It was a grubby plastic pill bottle with a label that read  _Extra Strength_   _Paracetamol._ Severus recognized it at once as a Muggle pain reliever his father insisted on using instead of faster-acting potions. He was no stranger to Muggle medicine, but he also knew it was a long shot at best, considering the limited shelf life and the extended release period.

"You've got a real shit sense of humor, you know that?" he muttered to whichever of the Fates might have been listening at the time. Without a better alternative, and a drilling ache in his head, he unscrewed the lid and popped three of the bone-white powdered ovals in his mouth, swallowing them dry.

In one of the few remaining shards of the mirror, Severus spotted the shower on the opposite side of the room. Perhaps some steam would help with the pounding that continued to resonate inside his skull. He turned the knob as far as it would go to the left to produce a steady stream of hot water before disrobing and stepping into the shower.

He emerged ten minutes later, feeling somewhat like his usual self, and retreated with haste down the chilly hall with a towel around his waist. Finding clothing proved to be almost as strenuous as finding pain relief. After several frustrating minutes of throwing moth-eaten sweaters, spare teaching robes, and ill-fitting trousers on the bed, Severus finally settled on wrinkled gray trousers and a navy button-down that had been supplied to him courtesy of St. Mungo's.

"Something else added to the list," Severus said, grimly eyeing the pile of discarded clothing. Reluctantly, he had to admit that new attire would have to be purchased, considering he had not only shed a few pounds over the last nine months, but also no longer required teaching robes.

Severus looked at himself in the mirror, not liking what he saw. His attention was immediately drawn to the Silhouette seal on his left wrist peeking out from the cuff of his sleeve. Agitated, he immediately conjured a bandage to cover the offending mark. He could already see the headlines of the  _Daily Prophet_  if his new brand was spotted:

_**Marked Again! Ex-Death Eater Severus Snape truly reformed?** _

But the trouble was, Severus reflected gloomily, that a heavily bandaged wrist had the potential to draw even more unwanted attention. The thick gauze strips left too much to the imagination, and he could see that headline too:

_**Spy-turned- Hero Attempts to Slit his own Wrists?** _

_Are you deluded_? Severus thought, staring at his reflection. He ripped away the material at once and stuffed it in his pockets.  _Think._   _You need something else._  He walked across the room to his wardrobe and began rummaging through the top drawer, hoping to find a pair of gloves he had rarely worn, stashed away, and almost forgotten about. After a few minutes of searching had proven unfruitful, Severus moved on to the second drawer. As soon as he opened it, he was greeted with a possible solution to his problem.

It was an old Tissot wristwatch his father had won during a billiards game sometime during late sixties. The grimy thing had not worked in years, the coils and wheels inside damaged from excessive winding. The face was pockmarked with scratches and hairline cracks, as was the bronze-coloured casing. His father was immensely proud of the trinket. He had said it was the most valuable thing he owned; called it his most prized possession, and consequently never took it off his arm.

The shape and size of it had become imprinted in Severus's mind, though not because his father wore it constantly, but rather because he and his mother often had indentations and bruises of similar size and shape on the sides of the heads from a backhand brought about by one of Tobias Snape's explosive, drunken rows.

When the man had finally managed to drown himself in his liquor—Eileen Prince had succumbed to her grief and guilt not shortly thereafter, leaving her disgruntled son to see to the funeral arrangements for both of them—Severus took one final jab at his dead father by refusing him his most valued possession while he rotted in the ground.

It was an ugly, useless token of his youth, but would serve the purpose he intended. Severus fastened the broken watch to his arm, careful to conceal the pulsating double spiral on his wrist with the cracked leather band. It would be tossed in the bin as soon as its usefulness had run its course. With one final glance, he deemed the clothing choice not wholly terrible, and then made his way down stairs.

Severus swept through the sitting room, paying very little attention to the remaining piles of spent Howlers, and even less to the portrait lying face-down in the middle of his kitchen floor. The temptation to reach out and call upon her, to demand to know what her intentions were, was there, but he did not dare touch the frame, lest he actually activate the thing. He walked around it in a prudent circle instead to reach his coat slung across the back of a kitchen chair. The wide berth felt oddly reminiscent of that which he employed when his father still prowled Spinner's End, and for an instant Severus felt absurd.

"She and everything about her is inconsequential," he told the empty air, though he knew that to be an outright lie. He shrugged into his cumbersome coat and walked directly over the frame as he headed toward the front door, knowing full-well his fate was in her hands.

Where there was sunshine and crisp air in Cokeworth, there was freezing rain and a drizzle in London. Severus had Apparated to London instead of Diagon Alley directly, in hopes that the walk to the Leaky Cauldron would give him a chance to work off what was left of his hangover. The longer he walked, the steadier the rain seemed to fall and umbrellas began to sprout like monochromatic mushrooms along the pavements. Severus remained dry as he navigated the crowds, the grey veil of mist and ice evaporating before it could reach a single hair on his head. Even with the silent charm in place, he pulled the black hood over his head in an attempt to make himself anonymous, to blend with the soggy passersby as they rushed past to escape the worsening weather.

He could see The Leaky Cauldron though the bobbing herd of people, its ominous façade made invisible to those belonging to the real world. It looked precisely how he remembered it from his last visit, nearly a year prior. The establishment was tucked inconspicuously between what used to be the old bookshop and Muggle surveying firm, and as he found himself walking closer, Severus could feel a sense of dread interwoven with the familiarity. On the outside of the pub he was just another random stranger going about his own business, an unfortunate soul caught in the rain, his boots striking puddles the same as everyone else's. On the inside, though, his crimes had been weighed on the balance of perceived justice and had been found wanting. The image of Adelaide came to mind as he approached entrance, and Severus dismissed it just as quickly once his hand fell upon the door. It was going to be difficult enough to step back into a world he had been absent from for almost a year without thinking of her.

Severus entered swiftly, taking care to close the door without commotion, and walked without thinking through the dingy, dimly-lit interior. The scent of wood smoke and scalded cabbage soup permeated the space, wreaking havoc on his already weak constitution. The Leaky Cauldron had been known for attracting sizable crowds during the luncheon hour, and given the dull drone of idle chatter and clanging utensils, it was safe to assume that the reputation held true. Not taking a chance in the crowd, Severus kept his hood up and his head down—not an uncommon sight in a place that acted as a gateway to the other side—until he had found himself staring at the brick wall of the courtyard.

 _Three up, two across_ , he thought, and all but forced himself to tap the well-worn brick in the space three times with his wand. The brick dissolved with a silent shudder, taking those around it in a domino effect until Severus was looking through an archway that opened onto the soggy, cobblestoned streets of Diagon Alley.

Diagon Alley could not have been more different since the last time he had laid eyes on it. The shroud of fear and darkness had been yanked away with the fall of the Dark Lord, revealing the kaleidoscope of color and organized chaos that was the beating heart of Wizirding Britain. The rain could not dull the colours, but somehow seemed to ignite them when the glint of winter sunshine managed to fight through the swirling clouds above. Door chimes rang out in a cacophony as witches and wizards alike darted in and out of shops, largely ignoring the somber skies overhead. Shrieking children trailed after mothers with arms pull of parcels. Street vendors called to those who passed, promoting their latest tonics and salves with the promise of grandiose effects.

Severus, in his pursuit of Culepepper's Apothecary, kept to the curtilage of the shop fronts in an attempt to remain unnoticed. He slipped like a shadow past a horde of laughing passersby who had stopped to admire the latest exploding trinket in the glittering window display of the shop belonging to the surviving Weasley twin. Farther ahead and despite the cold, a queue had coiled in front of Florean Fortesue's Ice Cream Parlour which forced him to move out into the open street—a location he found to be wholly unpleasant given the multitude of people going in every direction.

Twice he collided with darting strangers, and both made quick, apprehensive eye contact before they disappeared once again into the fray. Whether they recognized him or not, Severus refused to give it further thought as he continued toward his destination.

Culpepper's Apothecary sat on the less-crowded south side of Diagon Alley, the bright eggplant-coloured façade striking against the grey backdrop of the sky. Simple signage hung suspended from a matching pinstriped awning, depicting a single cauldron over flame. Wisps of charmed steam floated upward in a perpetual spiral. The apothecary was a welcome sight, even if he preferred J. Pippin's Potions in Hogsmeade.

Severus read the hand-painted sign on the door, silently mouthing the words, ' _Enter with caution and use sense when opening what is closed'_  before letting himself in.

The inside of the apothecary, Severus reflected, still reminded him the cramped home of a senescent Potions master, prone to leaving all manner of bottles and jars and phials on every available flat surface. The room was longer than it was wide, hardly suitable for the considerable hoard of patrons inside, and held several lengthy rectangular tables and shelves of varying widths and heights. The heat was also stifling, and after a few moments indoors, Severus was forced to remove his hood to find relief. Dusty placards poised on brass posts were placed here and there to act as a general guide to what ingredients, salves, ointments, and draughts were strewn below, but it took someone with a certain finesse to browse the collection without out assistance.

Severus retrieved a woven shopping basket by the door, walked to a tall shelf furthest from the till and those waiting in line for help, and began picking up the bottles one by one, reading the inscriptions. He had only managed to read the label on the fourth bottle before an agitated voice rang out from behind him.

"You don't understand," the female voice insisted. Several of the other patrons had stopped to stare at the commotion. "I need concentrated Alihotsy root, the fluid not the paste."

Severus froze, the frosted glass bottle in his hand slipping slightly from his grasp.

He knew that voice. He had heard it for six years in his classes. He moved between the two rows of shelves closest to the counter, though he was absolutely certain he was correct, and saw Hermione Granger standing by the till.

She had a look of concentration on her face, everything around her pushed to the back of her mind like a nagging afterthought. It was a look not much different than Severus had witnessed when she sat in the third row of his sixth year Defense class. It was easy to imagine the cogs turning in her head as she stared at the piece of paper in her gloved hand, then to the opened catalog upon the counter.

 _Some things never change,_  he thought, and placed two nondescript blue bottles in his basket.

Behind the counter the clerk, a stout man with a considerable midsection and receding hawkish hairline, shook his head. "Alihotsy root is a controlled substance, Miss. The root, especially in concentrated form, addles the brain. It's nasty business, nasty business indeed if not handled properly. The leaf itself, however, is more suitable for everyday brews—much safer for a young lady like yourself. "

Severus could not help but peer around the shelf he was browsing to watch this particular exchange unfold. Some things were better seen than heard, after all. Hermione Granger, just as he expected, bristled, the empty hand at her side clinching into a fist. The clerk continued on, oblivious to the sudden, swift curdling of her disposition.

"If you'd like to look at the catalogue, you'll find we stock over thirty species ranging from Common Alihotsy to East Asian Alihotsy."

Hermione threw one of her hands up and accompanied the gesture with a shrill bark of laughter. "Are you serious?"

"Oh yes, Culpeper's offers a fine selection of—"

"Is it also commonplace for Culpeper staff to run roughshod over customers?" Hermione insisted, cutting him off.

The clerk shuffled his feet, crossed and uncrossed his hands, and looked genuinely confused.  _The unfortunate fool still has no idea_ , Severus thought, and turned to hide the slight curling of his lips.

"I'm sorry, Miss—"

"As you should be," she snapped. Red-faced, the clerk tugged at his collar, but kept silent. " _Lady_ or not, I need the root fluid not the leaves, and I have clearance from the Ministry—the Wizarding Examination Authority if you want to be specific about it." She retrieved from her bag a crisp envelope with the Ministry seal and thrust it at the wizard. "If that isn't enough, I also have a letter from the Headmistress of Hogwarts who has agreed to oversee the completion of my N.E.W.T requirements." Keeping with the bravado of her house, she smiled at him. "Liabilities, personal or otherwise, included."

Severus could not suppress the small nod of amusement, and slipped further down the narrow aisle before she could notice him.

The clerk looked at the envelope, then around the shop, as if looking for someone to agree with him. When he realised he was on his own, he scuttled back behind the till and disappeared through the adjacent storeroom door. Several loud bangs and bumps rang out from the opened door, and moments later the clerk appeared with a number of colored bottles in hand. "I wasn't sure which one you needed," he said, somewhat out of breath, "so I brought the different potencies we have in stock. What sort of brew are you planning?"

"It's for an Alihotsy Draught," Hermione replied in a tone that suggested she was only half-listening. Severus cast a sideways glance through a space between patrons and saw that she was scratching something off the parchment she held. "I'll need the strongest concentration you have, though it will still probably be lacking."

The clerk, after a moment's reflection, gaped at her. "The roots will be enough to cause madness; complete and utter lunacy!"

Hermione looked up from the sheet of parchment, her expression one of pure annoyance. "It's meant to cause hysteria, is it not?"

"Well, yes," answered the clerk, thrown, "but not to the point where it could kill someone."

"I have no intention of killing anyone," Hermione answered impatiently, as if this was a conversation she had regularly. She sighed and rubbed the sides of her head. "I'm trying to develop an antidote, a proper one that will render Glumbumble Treacle obsolete. If the draught is weak, the antidote will be weak."

"Pardon me, Miss," the wizard said, doubtfully rubbing the graying stubble on his chin, "but why render a perfectly good antidote obsolete?"

"We rely on an insect for the antidote," Hermione said matter-of-factly. "And it is a species that may very well face extinction should the right conditions align. Does it not make sense to have an alternative, especially when Alihotsy leaves are used in several different potions?"

 _Two points to Gryffindor_ , Severus thought before he could help himself. The mental of image of her in his classroom, sitting three rows back between Potter and Weasley came to mind, but thankfully dissolved just as quickly. He had absolutely no desire to play host to the occasional, darting foray into what he considered one of the most volatile points in his life. Severus turned his attention instead to the portly clerk, who he noticed looked absurdly astonished by the young witch's logic.

"And  _this_ is for a N.E.W.T level assignment? Seems a bit advanced for a student."

"I'm not what you'd call a traditional student," said Hermione, and Severus heard forbearance in her tone at the clerk's prying.

 _Not a traditional student. What does she mean by that_?" Severus edged closer to where she stood, still taking care to keep out of sight. It had not dawned on him until that moment that she was alone. He looked around the apothecary, noticing the absence of prepubescent laughter and chatter. The staff would never make the long journey to Diagon Alley with a large group, nor would they allow a student to travel there by themselves during the term. Hermione Granger was either breaking the rules or the rules had been bent to accommodate her specifically.

A small part of him, much to his surprise, was intrigued by this painfully misleading statement, but to Severus's disappointment, however, Hermione quickly dismissed further questioning from the clerk by changing the subject.

"Which is the strongest potency?"

The clerk examined the bottles, the metal frame of his glasses resting on the tip of his sweaty nose. "Purple bottle," he said and handed it to her. His dubious expression was lost to Hermione, but Severus realised it easily enough. "In terms of amount and the effects of the given intensity you want, this will knock a grown man on his backside with one whiff of the fumes."

" _Highly potent…_ " Hermione said, reading the label verbatim. "… _evokes a larger response in limited quantities_."

"Dangerous if not handled properly," added the clerk.

"There is no price. How much is this?" Hermione asked, as though she had not heard a word of his warning.

"Twenty Galleons for the two ounces in the purple bottle. The green one is less potent, less expensive. It's only fourteen Galleons. Would you like to see the sample?"

"No, this will do," Hermione said, and fished around in her bag, producing moments later what appeared to be a sachet of coins. It landed with a heavy thud upon the counter.

The clerk contemplated the coins on the counter as though they had simply appeared out of thin air. He opened his mouth to speak, but before the stumpy wizard could utter one final, fleeting protest against the sale, or even offer a receipt of payment, Hermione Granger had stowed the bottle in her bag and swept away. The clerk watched her go with a mixture of rapt fascination and annoyance, and reluctantly began sorting the coins in the till.

Severus watched his former student leave the Apothecary and disappear down the winding path toward the hub of the alley. He waited several minutes to make absolutely certain she was gone before he paid for his things and left himself. It had been sheer dumb luck that she had not seen him inside the shop, and he had no intention of taking the chance of crossing her path out in the alley.

He proceeded to the counter where a small queue of two other patrons had formed and waited his turn to pay. The five minutes it took the clerk to properly see to the other customers seemed to pass excruciatingly slow, and on more than one occasion, Severus found himself checking the broken watch on his wrist, as though it could have willed the time to go faster.

Behind him the door bell chimed again, signaling either a departure or an arrival, though he did not turn to determine which because the clerk had waved him forward in the exact moment. He had no sooner placed his shopping basket on the counter than Hermione Granger swept past him as if he had not been there at all.

"Excuse me," she muttered to the clerk, not bothering to watch where she was going. Her arm was buried down to her elbow in the beaded bag hanging from her shoulder, searching frantically for something. "I believe I've forgotten my list."

"Indeed."

Severus knew at once that he ought not to have said a word, should have simply allowed her to shoulder past without acknowledgement. It would have saved him from what he knew was coming: the awkward, deeply familiar situation of forced pleasantries and the chilly silences that followed. It was too late now. Hermione had frozen upon hearing a voice that did not belong to the clerk, and slowly turned to look at him.

She drew a hand up to her mouth, her brown eyes widening almost comically. "Professor Snape. I—I didn't see you there. God, I'm sorry. I almost ran into you."

"A usual consequence from not watching where you're going," Severus deadpanned.

"Yes," she said, sounding somewhat flummoxed by her own voice, as though she was secretly castigating herself for the lapse. "Yes, I suppose so."

"Your list, Miss," said the clerk suddenly. Hermione jumped, trying with little success to stifle a gasp with nervous laughter.

She took it without offering thanks or a sideways glance and shoved it the back pocket of her denims. "I heard you were being released from the St. Mungo's. The—" Hermione paused and looked at him, as if she were searching for something in his face. It was unsettling at best. "The  _Daily Prophet,_ " she whispered, "confirmed it with this morning's edition. Front page—Wait! Professor Snape—

But Severus Snape was already heading for the door, the sound of the bell chiming as he passed into the soggy streets of Diagon Alley. The sleet was falling steadily now, the pavement underfoot becoming treacherous from the freezing slush. He did not turn around to see if she was following him, but kept his pace steady as he headed toward the designated Apparation point.

The shortest route to the Apparation point would take him past the headquarters of the  _Daily Prophet_. For a moment, he thought of bypassing it in favor of a much longer journey, but his desire to escape the busy streets of Diagon Alley persuaded him otherwise. It was a matter of minutes later when Severus passed the building that he so wanted to avoid. Try as he might, however, he could not resist the urge to look at the enormous poster that hung on the side of the building. The large advertisement always depicted the front page of that day's edition of the Prophet, and Severus felt a flash of cold fire dash down his neck when he saw that what Hermione Granger had told him was true.

The headline 'Martyr or Master Manipulator?' ran in a flashing, grandiose loop along the top and bottom of the banner. There was even a photograph of him being escorted from St. Mungo's in front of a crowd of hostile onlookers. Much to Severus's embarrassment, the photographer had managed to capture the exact moment a murky clod of half-frozen snow was hurled from the crowd only to smack him squarely in the face. Watching it made him wince all over again, the scratch below his eye giving a sudden tinge of pain. Severus felt his face flush at the sight of the banner, but his true humiliation did not come until he turned around to find a sizable number of people staring at him.

The contempt being projected at him by those who had gathered was palpable. He could hear them whispering to each other and saw mothers cautiously move between him and their children as if there was some danger that he would murder them on the spot. Exercising every bit of restraint he possessed, Severus turned away from the crowd and continued toward his destination without saying a word.

When he reached the Apparation point, he could still sense the suspicious stares of several passersby that had managed to put two and two together. For some reason he could not explain, Severus was compelled to look down at his wrist and the watch he had worn to conceal the new brand on his skin, hoping to avoid drawing undue attention to himself. He looked at the scarred face of the watch with disgust and inadvertently thought of his father.  _Just like everything else in my life, it didn't do me a damned bit of good_. He unclasped the band of the watch and let it fall to the pavement below before vanishing with a loud crack.

When he arrived back at Spinner's End, his heart was racing. The sight of the still-ruined sitting room, the stench of burnt parchment—it smelled like hatred, vitriol made absolute—made his insides lurch. It was suddenly too hard to contain the volatile mixture of fury and despair. Severus felt his knees give way, and he slid down the door and onto the floor, his head in his hands.

He just sat there, declining to think, and for a while it seemed to help. Severus had always relied on a certain emotional disengagement, had learned to depend on it from an early age to stop the out-of-control world he found himself in. It had become a staple in his adult life—his ability to cope as his Healer often said—pushing the stress, the death, the deceit, the lying to some dark corner of his mind and leaving it there to rot.

Severus closed his eyes and listened to the silence. The sickeningly tight feeling in his chest was beginning to ebb. He had escaped it, the glaring, reproachful eye of the public, but sooner or later he knew he would have to face them and the dark allegations they still clung to.

"Mister Snape?"

His heart gave a painful leap and Severus looked up, startled. Adelaide Harlow was staring at him from her floating portrait. She wore a troubled expression, her blue eyes striking against a spectral-like complexion.

"I heard you Apparate," Adelaide offered. The frame floated into the sitting room, casting the space in an eerie glow. "I've been waiting to speak with you about yesterday evening."

Severus felt the fragile illusion of resuming a normal life give a little, perhaps even crack down the middle. This was the moment he was sure it would shatter; the edges razor-sharp so he would never be able to forget how he had squandered his chance. This was the moment she would cut him loose. He knew he ought to say something, anything to try to dissuade her, but he did not because he also knew whatever he managed to say was likely not to matter. With that reasoning, Severus remained on the floor, his insides churning and his head throbbing with renewed force, and waited in silence for his sentencing.

"Are you alright?"

"What?" Lost in his own head, it took Severus a moment to wrap his mind around what she said. He was vaguely aware that she had asked him a direct question, but the nature of it had thrown him, completely.

"I asked you if you were alright." She looked concerned now, as if she thought he was not in his right mind. "I beg your pardon, but you look like you've gone through hell."

And it was with that simple, outward observation that the dam broke. The tight, pinched feeling in his chest returned, intensified to the point it was painful to draw a full breath. He hated that the corners of his eyes were suddenly damp. He hated that she was able to see right through him, certain if she could others would have done the same.

Hell indeed. She did not have the slightest clue.

"Don't tell me you haven't seen the latest edition of the _Daily Prophet_. ' _Martyr or Master Manipulator?!_ '" he snarled. "I'm plastered across the front page. Herded like livestock, pelted with snow for world to see. Do you have any idea, any concept of how that feels? To be treated like—"

Whatever Adelaide Harlowe had been about to say died in her throat. Not that she had to say a word considering her face gave her away. She had seen it, Severus had no doubt, had probably gone a step further and read the attached article. "It's alright—"

"It's far from alright!" Severus shouted, and it felt shameful, yet satisfying to hear the words echo off the walls. "My life has been overturned, and I am hanging on to the edge of what it used to be. I can feel it—I can feel that there is a part of me that longs for nothing more than to simply let go and watch as I shatter to ruin." He released a choking laugh that sounded more like a sob. "How fucked is that? How fucked am I to even consider it?"

"You aren't fucked. You're just human."

It disoriented him, the idea that such an obscenity could slip so effortlessly from a female mouth, let alone the one attached to the strange, young face floating in front of him. She had said the word without hesitation, and in a tone that conveyed clear warning that she had meant what she said and for him not to take it lightly.

"People can only break you if you allow it," she told him, and Severus turned his face away from her, stared out at the sitting room without really seeing anything in it. He wiped the corners of his eyes with the back of his hand; it seemed stupid now to keep up with the pretense after he'd laid himself bare not moments before.

"You don't think they already have?" Severus's voice was strained and rough, had an odd edge to it even, as if he had been surprised to hear himself say the words aloud.

"No," said Adelaide, the corners of her mouth twitching up in a half-smile. "No, I don't. If the Dark Lord couldn't manage it, what makes you think any clod off the street can?"

Severus sighed tremulously and tipped his head back to stare up at the ceiling. He noticed the delicate lacing of cobwebs covering the lone, dated light fixture hanging in the middle of the room. It had been years since the old wrought iron thing had responded to electricity right; in his youth it would burn out incandescent bulbs faster than they could be replaced. In a sad, distorted way it reminded him a lot of himself— a useless shell of something that once had a purpose. His purpose, whatever it was now, was lost to him.

"Do you think they have?" Adelaide asked, and Severus snapped back to reality. "It doesn't really matter what I think, Mister Snape. They're just empty words to you if you don't believe them yourself."

Severus snorted in spite of himself, his face still turned toward the ceiling.  _Do I_? He sat as if suffering from a sudden attack of paralysis and thought of how to respond to her. Part of him felt the impulse to take offence at the presumed accusation, but there was something about her expression that prevented it.

"It's never simple," Adelaide added before Severus had managed to say anything at all. "Not really something you can explain on a whim to a complete stranger. It's one of those stubbornly rhetorical questions we all have to work through all on our own."

The frame descended further and she was suddenly staring into his face. Adelaide smiled, a faint, delicate gesture he had not expected but knew he did not deserve. Try as he may, Severus could not help but stare back, his hands shaking slightly at his sides. As it turned out, vulnerability and an extraordinary hangover were a fickle mix that did not agree with him.

"At some point, we all find ourselves in the midst of a crucible," said Adelaide. She looked away, as though struggling to form her words. "Some people… some of the unfortunate ones don't make it to the other side alive, but there are a certain few who do manage to survive. Even then, they still manage to lose themselves in their struggle to survive. There are people that make it to the other side much the worse for wear, but they have overcome. It often isn't the most intelligent or the strongest to make it to the other side of whatever hell they've faced, but those who best respond to the change laid before them."

"What could you possibly know of survival," he snapped. "You and all of your years of—"

"I know a great deal more than I ever wanted to, I can assure you of that, Mister Snape," Adelaide said. "I know there are days when you feel like you'd rather die than keep up the charade. I know the anger you feel. I know the envy you feel toward those who've managed to forget and move on. It's the reason I'm in this frame."

Severus could sense the sudden change of her mood, could see soft lines form in the corners of her mouth as the frown on her face deepened. It was like knowing a gale was coming from just the feel of the air.

"Don't presume you are alone in your struggles," she continued, her face crumpling as if she were about to cry. Severus pretended not to notice anything amiss. "I once sat where you sit at this very moment. There were days when I nearly charmed boards to cover the windows of my flat so I wouldn't have to see the sunshine and know I had to go through another day of the life I lived then."

There was a long silence after that, and Severus waited, expecting her to elaborate on her own personal trials—people often did that, he found, especially when they were trying to make him understand that he would eventually find himself whole again—but she never did, and this somehow made him feel oddly at ease.

"I do want to apologize to you, though," Adelaide said at last. "For intruding so rudely the previous evening. This transition, if I may be so bold to say, has not been easy for you. I didn't help matters by prying when you wanted peace. These things take time."

Adelaide smiled at him again, and the sadness that had been on her face melted away into a sort of mysterious wistfulness. "I don't want this arrangement to end, because I wouldn't be where I am today if someone had given up on me," she said. "But I will tell you that I considered it a great deal out of my own selfishness and the anger I felt after what you said to me."

Severus found he could not articulate a response to that, but Adelaide did not seem to require a reply.

"I've never been on the receiving end of such words," she continued, "but I remember what it was like to say them to someone else. I remember saying such hurtful things to the people who were trying to help me because I felt as though what I was going through was none of their business. It was my doing, it was my fight regardless of the fact I was tired of fighting it. Tell me if I'm wrong," she went on, "but there is a weight, isn't there? A god-awful weight of something so huge you cannot even comprehend, and it feels as if it is slowly eating you alive from the inside out. The slightest bit of pressure makes it seem as though you could break to pieces."

Severus scoffed, though the sound of it was not nearly as derisive as he had hoped. "You label it as though it's something commonplace—"

"I do no such thing, Mister Snape. I merely call it what it is. Think about it, you've only just left the hospital yesterday after nine months of recovery, and in the midst of those idiots to boot. You came home to find no reprieve because of the Howlers, and now the Prophet article. This is a lot of adjustment in just the span of hours, and there comes a time when we all say things that we shouldn't because that's simply all we can do at the present time to muddle through." Adelaide gave him a level look and continued. "You need not confuse my understanding of why you did it with my acceptance of it, either."

A frown found its way to his face, and though he was not particularly fond of being lectured, Severus did not protest.  _The only way for there to be a mistake in the pairing is if you made it so,_ he thought.  _It's her or St. Mungo's._ There was one nagging question that still remained: which was the lesser of the two evils?

"You are far too forgiving for your own good," Severus said at last, making his way to his feet. He was unsure of whether she was willing to humor him but was too tempted not to try.

Adelaide grinned, apparently realizing that was as close to an apology she would receive.

* * *

Author's Notes: This story may be for Thorned Huntress, cheerleader extraordinaire and kick-ass friend, but I am deeply thankful for those of you who have decided to join Severus for this ride, whether it be by your follows, your favorites, or your reviews. That said, I hope you enjoy the latest update! As always reviews are welcomed and greatly appreciated. Next chapter to come in a few weeks!


	5. Chapter IV

**Characters are property of J.K Rowling and the Harry Potter Universe. Thankfully, she allows me to borrow them for a bit of fun.**

* * *

**Silhouette**

**Chapter IV**

Severus held his cup of tea with both hands and stood by the front window overlooking the snow-covered streets. The dismal weather that had been plaguing London the day before had finally managed to travel to Cokeworth, and seemed to have done so with vengeance. It had snowed massively during the night and the iridescent flakes, tossed viciously by the icy wind, continued to hit the windowpane in a silent assault that nearly blocked the view of the street completely. He could no longer see the pockmarked pavement under the unnaturally clean blanket of white, but knew it was there, waiting to reveal itself again with the first cold rain. In his youth, Severus used to enjoy this view. Rain or shine, he would hide behind the sheer curtains and watch strangers come and go. The world that lay beyond the shadow of the Mill had always intrigued him, but that was before he found out what it was for himself.

 _Same tune, different song,_  he thought.

He took a long pull from the tea cup and frowned. Two days home and he had already come to despise it. For years, Severus seldom had anything to do with his childhood home and since being granted full ownership of the property had only visited it a few times during a year, mainly during the summer holidays or when he simply needed to time to himself during school terms. He had, following a rather unfortunate trip to Diagon Alley, spent the better part of the previous evening settling into what was to become his permanent residence for the foreseeable future. He had partially unpacked his black trunk. He put the properly-fitting clothes in the front of his wardrobe. He left the substandard stationary and the picture from Augusta Barnes inside the trunk and slid it out of sight under his bed. The rest of his night and part of the early morning had been spent picking at a mediocre order of greasy takeaway and straightening the mess that remained on the first floor. The floors were methodically swept, the surfaces dusted and washed by hand. It had only been an excuse to stay busy, albeit a tiresome one.

Severus had turned off the lights and dragged himself to bed shortly after three, and had simply lain there listening to the freezing rain beat against the bedroom window. He had not prepared himself for this, at least not in the way he believed he had. Everything familiar and accepted had been ripped away, and in its place there was something he could not quite define. He could hear it in the slow, rhythmic ticking of the clock on the bedside table, could even feel it in the stillness of the house. Uncertainty was the name he would have liked to have bestowed it, but the word only proved to be a poor synonym that could not be stretched to fit the unsettling sense that he had absolutely no direction in his life now. The last thought that occurred to him before he fell asleep was that he was floating— almost listlessly so—with nothing but a strange woman in a black-framed portrait to act as his anchor.

Not quite three hours later, he emerged from a restless sleep only to be greeted by utter silence and a bitterly cold room. Severus had lain there imagining his breath condensing and evaporating as it collided with the chilly air, and waited to slip back into unconsciousness. It was still black as pitch and snowing quite hard outside when he had finally crawled out of bed with a blanket draped around his shoulders and descended the stairs to stoke the fire.

Severus had sank in the deep chair by the hearth and idly poked at the burning wood for the remainder of the early morning, scowling into the firebox, his eyes seeing through the flames to somewhere far, far away. His gaze had strayed from the firebox on occasion to wander restlessly around the shadowed room, but never seemed to fall on the Silhouette portrait lying on the arm of the sofa.

Even in the current moment, as he stood before the single sitting room window watching the latest snow squall pass over, he would not allow it, though he was not quite certain of the reasons. Truth be told, he was still uncertain about a great many things, and had absolutely no idea where to even begin to make sense of them. It was enough to give him a headache, to call back the uncomfortable anxious feeling that had troubled him the night before.

With a single swig Severus drained the last of his tea and turned away from the window in a fashion that would have set his cloak flapping had he been wearing it. He stalked off toward the kitchen, his socked feet silent upon the cold wooden floors, and wondered how he was going to survive the remaining days of winter at Spinner's End without thicker socks and a decent pair of thermal underwear. Despite his hatred of St. Mungo's, the hospital, with its reliable heat and considerable staff of House Elves, had softened him. The nearly constant mental concentration required to keep a simple Warming Charm functioning was becoming tiresome, and hardly worth the effort given his increased pacing about the house.

He had to find some way to amuse himself, or at least make the time pass faster until he could crawl back into bed, lest he run the very real risk of going stir-crazy or simply freezing to death. Severus considered returning to Diagon Alley for the potion supplies he had left behind the day before, but decided he was not in the mood to brave the weather—or more accurately— the crowds. Instead he settled for the hard kitchen chair, a pot of freshly brewed tea, and the morning edition of the  _Daily Prophet_.

Severus, unable to stomach the image of himself on the front cover and the related articles, had cancelled his personal subscription to the paper four months after he had been instated as Headmaster of Hogwarts. He had not considered paying the monthly fees to resume service until he found himself waging a fierce battle with boredom in the early days of his convalescence.

The newspapers from the past two days had been delivered on schedule to  _'Mr. S Snape. Ward 1, Room 919, St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, London,_ ' only to be bound tightly with twine and forwarded to his new permanent address by the brown owl belonging to Augusta Barnes. Severus had opted to throw the edition containing the obviously caustic article detailing his release from the hospital straight in the bin.

The  _Sunday Prophet_  he held in his hand was thicker than the standard weekday editions, complete with its twenty-five pages of features, ranging from  _Good News_  and  _Bad News_ columns, to politics, sports, and obituaries. Unlike the weekly editions which were designed to quickly deliver the news, the  _Sunday Prophet_  seemed to expand exponentially, in order to keep the reader intrigued and fend off boredom largely associated with lazy Sundays.

Severus purposefully skipped the public opinion and comment sections, certain there would be residual remarks in response to the article from the day before. The Spell and Potion sections proved lackluster, as did the Sports feature, which detailed the lopsided and not particularly surprising Quidditch win Norway held over Ivory Coast. Between intermittent sips of tea Severus continued to thumb through the remaining features, skimming the headlines for anything remotely interesting. It was not until he had finished his third cup of tea and turned to page sixteen that a headline caused a flash of cold fire to streak down his back.

_Silhouette: The American Brand of Rehabilitation_

_By: Royia Coyle; Chief medical correspondent, The Daily Prophet_

_London—_ _Imagine, if you would, if you knew the exact moment your life would come to its end._

_It would not do to dwell on such things for obvious reasons that need no explanation but, for the sake of perspective, imagine yourself moving forward—or in the unique and unfortunate case of some, backwards—to this allotted slice of time designated for your death. The questions that may arise, the unimaginable scenarios your mind may conjure will make no difference when the time comes, whether you go peacefully in your sleep or at the hands of another, because once it is over, it is precisely that._

_Dying, in and of itself, is easy._

_Now imagine a different scenario: You have faced your supposed death, but rather than passing beyond the Veil you wake to find yourself to be still among the living. You have, against the odds, not only survived, but you have survived with the proper mental capacity to acknowledge this fact. It is this knowledge of what you have faced, it is this knowledge of what you have overcome, and it is survival in its most basic form, with its abundance of emotion—good and bad—that is the most difficult to rationalize._

_Surviving, according to those who witness it every day, is the hardest thing you will ever do._

" _St. Mungo's Hospital, since the final deadly battle of Hogwarts, has seen a monumental influx of patients and families alike who struggle to overcome memories they cannot forget," said Miriam Pye, Chief Healer of the Spell Damage ward, during a recent Daily Prophet interview._

_In the weeks after the fall of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the hospital staff found themselves in the midst of unexpected disorder._

" _We admitted the wounded and their families so that they might receive relief and respite, but soon discovered we could not properly give that," Pye went on. "Bodies of those who perished were brought to St. Mungo's as a precaution against Inferi. They lined an entire corridor and part of another for nearly a week before the Ministry deemed them fit for burial. It was a deadly reminder of what had transpired and of the potential dangers that still lurked."_

_While Healer Pye was adamant that St. Mungo's was more than adequately equipped to treat the physical injuries of the multitude of war casualties that came through their doors in the days after the Battle of Hogwarts, she admits that they found themselves ill-prepared to deal with the mental and emotional trauma that many of the victims had suffered. "There were so many dealing with scars to their psyche, more than ten times the normal amount of psychiatric patients we would typically house at any given time, and many of those scars went far deeper than we could have imagined."_

_Luckily, help soon came from a group of American healers who had heard about the plight of the survivors of the Second Wizarding War. "We were sent word about an exciting new program they had developed called 'Silhouette.' The concept seemed so foreign at the time, but we were so desperate that we accepted their invitation to help."_

_The Silhouette Initiative, as described by those behind its conception, was initially developed to be a personal assistance device for witches and wizards who found themselves unable to manage their busy schedules or as a tutor to schoolchildren. However, after hearing about the situation at St. Mungo's from some of the Healers in the American Wizarding community, those behind the Initiative saw the potential for Silhouette to take on a new, unexpected role – to help survivors of the war find a smooth transition back to normalcy._

" _Despite the trials and tribulations of surviving, p_ _eople fail to realise that most things are forgotten with time._ _It happens easily, but it is even easier not to notice when it occurs._ _Memories of our survival become lost in our everyday lives until they become distorted, until we forget how they have changed and molded us into who we are," said American witch and Chief Advisor of the Silhouette Initiative, Zella Shrout. "Even now, with the first anniversary of the Second Wizarding War looming over the horizon, people have forgotten what it was like to live moment to moment; they have forgotten what it was like to endure the nearly daily life-and-death struggle to make it out somewhat intact._ _Those people should consider themselves lucky, because there are still a fair few of who have yet to find their place within Britain's Wizarding community."_

_Staff from St. Mungo's, while unable to disclose information concerning individual patient's cases, were able to confirm that the Silhouette Initiative is now out of the preliminary stages, and discharged patients are now becoming acclimated with the new brand of healing magic. The Silhouette Initiative, Shrout explains, will pair patients with carefully-selected individuals coined as Matches that will communicate with them through a portrait. The Matches will be available to assist recovering patients with any tasks they need assistance with, or, Shrout says, just to lend an understanding ear should the patient need someone to talk with._

" _This is a very exciting time for the healing arts," said Shrout. "The results we are collecting already show a successful number of Silhouettes being bound with their patient Matches—the strongest bonding experiencing I have witnessed to date took place a mere two days ago. The evidence and testimonies we are seeing so far is very encouraging, indeed."_

_Could this American magic really be the cure-all for the mental ailments of those who survived one of the most tragic events in the history of Wizarding Britain? Only time will tell, but for their sakes, as well as the sake of our community as a whole, we should hold out hope that it will be._

Severus grimaced, as if struck by a sudden bout of nausea. He closed the paper, laid it on the table in front of him and simply sat there. This was a circumstance he had not planned for, and it was hardly pleasant. The article had not mentioned him personally, but any idiot off the street could easily put two and two together, what with the slanderous article the day before and now this only a day later. It seemed, at the very least, as though someone was attempting to cause speculation.

Before he could help it, Severus found himself imagining the gossip, the rings of convoluted conversation and hearsay. There had been a time in his life when other people's opinions would not have bothered him in the slightest, but whether or not the wreck of the man he used to be was hiding somewhere deep inside remained to be seen.

He peered down at the newspaper as though he had just discovered it was a previously unknown enemy, then frowned. Severus realised he was being thoroughly ridiculous and a touch suspicious, but also felt as if he had earned that right.

Why was it so difficult for people to leave well enough alone?

Severus stood from the table, and as he did so, he seized the newspaper and chucked into the bin by the backdoor, eager to be rid of it. When it disappeared from view it was almost as if the weight on his shoulders had went with it.  _Out of sight, out of mind_ , he decided. He would handle the matter of his sudden, unwanted celebrity the same as he had his recovery: allow it to simply run its course. Something bigger, something more exciting and newsworthy would eventually come to pass and his discharge from St. Mungo's would be nothing more than a distant memory.

Somewhere inside Severus a haughty, skeptical voice pointed out that he was a fool to think it would be that simple. His life had never been that simple, and it was nonsense to believe it had changed. He promptly ignored it and instead settled his attention on finding something suitable to eat for dinner.

With a saucer of partially-blackened toast and tepid beans and a fresh pot of tea and tea cup floating effortlessly behind him, Severus returned to the sitting room. The faint smell of Muggle floor cleaner and just the slightest tang of burned parchment still lingered, but he refused to allow it the chance to ruin his supper, lackluster though it was. He ate a bite of toast and chewed in silence, half expecting the act to provide some sort of amusement or at least satisfaction. It did not happen.

For a fleeting moment, his eyes caught the Silhouette portrait balanced on the sofa arm, and he contemplated calling upon Adelaide. Severus dismissed the idea just as quickly, thinking  _don't you dare go there_ ,  _not now._ He shook his head, as if to jostle the notion back to where it belonged, and took a rather large bite of toast. It was unexpectedly repellent. He forced himself to swallow, and chased the mass of chewed bread and beans with tea.

What the hell was he thinking?

The previous evening they had agreed, after Severus had finally managed to gain control of himself and the situation, that she would only activate her portrait in the evenings, promptly at a quarter past five. He had informed her that he had things he needed to do, though he had no earthly clue what those things might be, and insisted that she go about her daily business in the same manner. Throughout the entire conversation, he had visions of Zella Shrout and her blonde assistant pop into his head, and he refused to allow himself to stoop to that level of codependency.

It had taken a serious amount of negotiation on her part for him to agree, but in the end he relented, satisfied with the terms. Adelaide had made it quite plain throughout their discussion that if he needed her—to which he made it quite plain that he was a grown man capable of taking care of himself—that he was free to seek her out no matter the hour. He was not about to take her up on the offer, determined to see that his ego would win out over his sanity and his incredible boredom.

Severus's gaze found the clock above the mantel, and he watched as the tiny brass hands dutifully tick down the minutes. "All hours wound; the last one kills," he told the empty air, in a humorless tone—only an hour and six minutes remained before Adelaide would appear for the evening to complete their predetermined time of interaction. Still, Severus did not think he could bear the mind numbing silence for that length of time without something to occupy his attention.

He left his partially eaten dinner on the side table, and walked over to the nearest bookcase and stood, staring at the old, tattered bindings of the books. Severus had fully intended to hold off on the task of rifling through the old texts until he could be rid of the ones he did not want. It was not in him to simply throw them out with the rubbish, and it certainly was not in him to take them to a secondhand store in the current weather. In the end, he simply sighed at the collection of books, deciding to wait, and turned his attention to what looked to be a small table beside the case.

Tobias Snape was never able to afford both being in his cups and the finer things in life, but had, on one rare occasion that Severus could remember, spent what was left of his wages on a used record player from a local secondhand store. The store had long since boarded up its doors and windows, but the record player still remained like a steadfast pillar of familiarity in the corner of the room. The previous evening, Severus had taken special care to clean the dust from between the wooden grooves, feeling a creeping mix of sentiment and antipathy as he had done so. It was the one trifling thing— _the only thing_ —that he and his father ever shared an appreciation for.

He had tried to hate the thing at first, and for the very simple reason his father adored it so. When he was nothing more than elbows and knees swathed in hand-me-downs, Severus would often find himself seated out of sight on the stairs, and listening to the pop and crack of the speakers as the machine hissed to life. He would wait, listening as the stylus slid into the groove of the record. Sometimes he would play a game with himself, trying to guess which vinyl his father had placed upon the turntable as the needled bounced off the invisible furrows, searching for a melody. He was never correct in his guesses, but that never stopped him from playing the same, private game each time the record player was switched on.

Severus thumbed through records stacked neatly in the side rack before closing his eyes and picking one at random. Without looking, he removed the worn thing from the cardboard sleeve and placed it on the turntable and flipped the switch. A faint, mechanical whine rippled out from the speaker, and he waited, impressed in spite of himself that the machine was still working after all these years without magical interference.

Severus concentrated on the series of pops and cracks emanating from the speaker and tried to recall which of his father's records produced that exact pattern. He found himself horribly out of practice. The years since he had listened to the record had caused the memory to fade from his mind almost completely. His thoughts raced to remember the name of one of the opening songs on the albums he had heard so many times as a child. He remembered one of the Rolling Stones records beginning with a song called " _Gimme Shelter_ " and made that his official guess. When he heard the melodic tone of the acoustic guitar ringing out, he knew at once that he had guessed incorrectly.

The song was " _Here Comes the Sun_ " from the Beatles'  _Abbey Road_. As the music swelled and grew and filled the room, Severus made his way to the chair and listened to the lyrics " _Little Darling, it's been a long, cold lonely winter. Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here_ ," and discovered that he was content with being wrong despite the ridiculous irony in the words.

Severus closed his eyes, a single socked-foot tapping out the beat, and allowed the words to weave in and out of his thoughts. It had been too long since he had indulged in one of his guilty pleasures, and he realised just how much he had missed the Muggle music from his youth. In times when he had no one to turn to, in those dreadful moments of turmoil— in childhood or adulthood—the music was always there as his safe haven. He found he could disappear between the words; he could leave behind the world and all of its problems, even if it was only for just three minutes and a handful of seconds…

But, as the Fates would have it, he was not able to slip away for even that long.

A loud pecking noise suddenly punctured the notes and whatever temporary respite they had provided. At first, he thought it might have been the stylus skipping over a crack he had not seen in the vinyl, but it seemed to come from beyond the record player, and even beyond the walls themselves. Severus, not without a moment's hesitation, and a hasty look toward the clock—he still had time to deal with whoever was outside his door before Adelaide appeared—flicked his wand at the record player, and the voice belonging to the Beatle named George Harrison cut off abruptly.

The condensation on the front windowpane coupled with the blowing snow outside made it nearly impossible to recognize the human-shaped blob. Whoever was there was most definitely someone that was not there by accident. His first thought, much to his disappointment, was that Augusta had decided to make a house call or worse, send Thomm Curwood in her place to see how he was settling in.

More off-putting, though, was the prospect of a  _Daily Prophet_  reporter dropping by to get the latest scoop on his recovery and release. Severus thought of the article he had read not an hour before and flashbulbs from the day he was escorted home, and decided that he would much rather find Thomm, crimson-faced and wheezing, standing out in the cold.

Severus stood and strode quickly to the Silhouette portrait on the sofa and stashed it beneath the cushion as a precaution. There was no need to fan the flames, after all.

He peeked through the window coverings, still unable to see the figure clearly, though whoever it was appeared to have their back to the door for some reason. Severus decided in that moment that there was no point in prolonging the inevitable confrontation. He seized the handle and all but threw the door open, hoping the unfortunate fool outside would take the hint.

"What do you want?" Severus demanded, and in an instant his stern expression turned into open-mouthed dismay. The hooded figure turned around the moment he addressed it, revealing windblown tangles of brown hair and a set of brown eyes. He quickly shut his mouth; his lips setting in a severe line, and hoped Hermione Granger had not noticed that she had caught him off guard.

"I asked Professor McGonagall for your address," Hermione said at once, and Severus lost his train of thought at the unexpected declaration.

"Wha—what?" he asked, pulling himself together. "Why would you do that?"

"It's a funny story, actually. The apothecary clerk and I had a bit of a row after you left, the idiot. He said something along the lines of me running away business. He was shocked stupid when I offered to pay for these." She held out a purple paper bag with the Culpeper Apothecary emblem printed on the front. "I figured there was a reason you were about to pay for them."

"You shouldn't—"

"Please," she said, and put the bag at their feet. "I know I shouldn't have, but I wanted to. I felt awful after—well, you know."

"Be that as it may, it is unacceptable, not to mention a touch uncouth to show up unannounced," he scolded, sounding very much like the Professor he had once been. It sounded odd, even to his ears. "Minerva should have known better than to freely give my information."

"She said you would probably say that." Hermione smiled as she looked down at his socked feet, utterly unperturbed. "But she also told me to do it anyway."

 _Of course she would_ , Severus thought. He considered closing the door in her face in that moment, and his hand even made it so far as the door handle, but Hermione broke in before he could resolve in following through with it.

"I know I am overstepping my bounds here, Professor Snape," she said. "But please. I came all this way, and it would be a shame if the ingredients spoiled in this weather."

After a moment Severus stared down at the paper sack with a resigned look, then back to Hermione Granger. He did need what was in the bag, but also knew he ought to decline the gesture based on principle alone; the whole situation was absurd. Severus did not say anything for a long time, just stood there at the door while the wind whipped snow around them, fighting the silent battle between his reasonable side and blistering urge to shut the door in her face.

Hermione smiled up at him. There was nothing insincere about that smile, but she looked almost disappointed. "I'm sorry," she said unexpectedly. She took a deep breath and picked up the paper sack. "I shouldn't have—"

"How much?" Severus asked, cutting her off. He turned without waiting for her to answer, and went to retrieve a means of payment.

"I don't want your money, Professor," Hermione stated matter-of-factly. The closeness of her voice, told him that she had taken it upon herself to follow him inside. The front door clicking shut confirmed it.

"Don't be any more difficult that you already are," Severus replied, hurriedly trying to locate his wallet. He found it sitting atop the mantel where he had left it the previous evening, and fished out the last of the Muggle money he had on him—a Fifty pound banknote. "Purchases would normally be charged to my account at Gringotts, so this will have to do. This will need to be exchanged. I trust that won't be an issue?"

"No, really," Hermione said again, her protest becoming more adamant. "I'm glad to help. I don't need any—"

"Miss Granger," Severus cut her short, the banknote still extended toward her. "Your capacity for generosity is duly noted. However, I simply do not have time to squabble over something this trivial. You will take payment for it or you will keep it—case closed. I have no interest in becoming a charity case."

"It's not…" Hermione stopped herself, apparently realising this was a battle she was not going to win. She reached out and plucked the note from his hand. She looked down at the money, then took a deep breath and said, "If you insist, Professor. But it didn't cost this much, and I don't have any Muggle money at the moment to give you change."

"That won't be necessary," Severus said. His eyes darted toward the clock, then back to his unexpected guest. He was running out of time. "Besides it is likely not to amount to much in terms of change."

"Eleven pounds…"Hermione said absently, running the calculations through her head. "Yes. Eleven pounds give or take a few pence."

"As I said, keep it."

She seemed to be on the verge of another protest, but then she slid the money in the back pocket of her jeans, and said, "Thank you. Not just for that, but for accepting the offer. I was afraid you wouldn't after what happened yesterday."

 _Yesterday_ , Severus thought, and felt himself beginning to slip into a black sulk.  _Yes, Granger. As if you weren't intrusive enough, bring up yesterday while you're at it_.

"It was better than the alternative," he said, in a bored tone.

"Alternative?"

"There are people far worse than you: A nameless stranger, someone with a score to settle."

Hermione looked shocked, as though she were trying to puzzle through whether she ought to take the statement as a compliment or a passive jab. "I read the paper yesterday morning," she said at last "And I remember thinking how horrible that must have been. Then I saw you at Culpepper's and I knew. I knew when I looked at you, that you hadn't seen it yet. I know I probably shouldn't have because it was none of my business, but I still didn't think it was right, you know?"

Severus felt as though he should say something to her: stop talking, or don't meddle, or even more surprising, thank you, because he did know, actually. They lived in a world now where it was common place for the hot topic of the day to be last to know—even about themselves— what was considered truth by the media. And if the truth was not particularly grand, it was augmented enough to cause notice but never speculation. Still, he did not trust his tongue not to betray him, so he just stood there with his hands in his trouser pockets and said nothing at all.

"Anyway," Hermione said, and Severus noticed she allowed herself to look around the room for the first time since entering. Her eyes caught on the record player at the last second and she bit back a smile. "I need to get back to work on my N.E.W.T. project, and I'm sure you'd like to get back to your evening."

"The Alihotsy root fluid is overkill." The thought had popped into Severus's head and out of his mouth faster than he could stop it. Hermione looked back at him, her head cocked to the side, with what could have been genuine surprise.

"How do you know that?" she sputtered. "I mean if anyone knew it would be overkill it would obviously be you, but how do you know I'm even using the fluid?"

"The entire apothecary overheard your conversation with the clerk," Severus said, in the taut voice of someone who tired of explaining the obvious. "Though I can't say that particular exchange was a surprise. You were never one to take naturally to suggestions that weren't your own, but you ought to have listened to him when he told you the leaves would have been sufficient."

Hermione made a face. "But if the draught is weak—"

"It will have absolutely no bearing on the success of a properly-brewed antidote," Severus said. "Any Potion-maker worth his salt will tell you that."

There was a brief moment of puzzlement, and then Severus thought he saw a slight bit of recognition enter her eyes. "Thank you, I think," Hermione said, trying to marshal her thoughts. "I'm pretty sure I'll have to find new resource material to reference now, but you I think you might have just saved me some trouble down the road."

Severus almost took his hands out of his pockets to applaud her sudden epiphany. Instead he just stood there without expression. He wondered if she really understood what he was talking about or if she would even listen to him if she did, but then he realised it was not his problem, and decided to leave it at that.

With that, Hermione cleared her throat, thanked Severus again, and saw herself out of his house. He watched her through the window as she walked down the walkway with the all the casualness of a spoiled house cat. She turned just as she reached the end of the property and stared back at the house, not seeing the pair of black eyes watching her from the shadows. Hermione stood there a long while, the wind tugging at her hair, and for a moment she looked as if she was considering turning back. Instead, she simply shook her head, pulled her cloak more securely around her, and Disapparated with a sharp crack.

For the first time in the last twenty minutes, Severus felt himself relax. He rubbed absently at the sides of his head, trying to make sense of what just had happened. When he left St. Mungo's, he knew that he would inevitably find himself in the presence of those he knew previous to his time in the hospital. He had not, however, expected it to happen so soon and with someone with whom his prior relationship had been so tenuous.

 _It could have been worse_ , Severus thought, but then he decided that was nothing but a lie.

The clock on the mantle chimed, signaling the arrival of five o'clock, and Severus went to retrieve the portrait from the sofa. He hated to think of the conversation he would have to have if Adelaide Harlow find herself tucked between the cushions.

He laid the portrait face-up on one of the sofa and he took the seat on the opposite end, staring at the flames glowing in the grate. Once or twice, Severus allowed himself to dart a quick glance at the paper sack sitting by the front door. It troubled him to find it sitting there, a reminder that he had not imagined the impromptu meeting with his former student.

A quick flick of his wand brought the bag over to the side table next to where he sat, but he could not make himself look inside, not yet anyway. There was a part of him that felt irritated; Severus wanted very much to toss the entire bag in the rubbish bin and be done with it. He had not asked for it, yet he had accepted it all the same. The most irritating thing, however, was the fact he could not even begin to guess her motives for doing such a thing. Fingers drumming on the armrest, Severus thought of the article he had read in today's paper and frowned. Maybe she wanted to see if he was part of this newly-famed program? Maybe she was genuinely sorry for the current state of his life…

A thin whine issued from the opposite end of the sofa, and Severus glanced at the clock; five fifteen on the dot, just as promised. The portrait drifted off the cushion, the image growing sharper as it rose, and instead of seeing his reflection staring back at him, he saw a wide-set pair of blue eyes and an absurdly infectious grin.

"Good evening, Mister Snape," Adelaide said, in a voice that sounded almost singsong.

Severus did not answer.

"Is this a bad time?" Adelaide asked, this time much more reserved. "It was five fifteen by my clock."

"It's fine," Severus said at last, not bothering to look at her as he spoke. He pointed to the side of his head and said in a rather tired voice, "I have a lot on my mind."

"Oh, well, would you like to talk about it," Adelaide inquired; she was still far too eager for her own good.

"Not especially," Severus replied dryly. "It was just one of those everyday annoyances one must endure. May we just get on with what we need to do and be done with it?"

"This is what needs to be done, Mr. Snape," Adelaide said firmly. "It's the reason I'm here – to help you adjust to your new life, including everyday annoyances."

Severus hesitated before deciding to tell the truth. "Someone came by unannounced. She was a student of mine, not so long ago—a dreadfully annoying girl. She had potential, but she unfortunately possessed an annoying habit of regurgitating facts."

"She was one of the charges in your House?" Adelaide asked, and Severus could tell she was reaching for more information.

"God no. She was and remains a Gryffindor to the bone." He gestured to the purple bag sitting upon the side table and shook his head. "She took it upon herself to buy and deliver an apothecary order."

Adelaide gave the bag an assessing stare, then finally smiled. "That was thoughtful of her."

"Hardly," Severus said. He reached into the purple paper sack and withdrew a frosted blue bottle, eyed it scornfully, then sat it to the side before retrieving another. "It was presumptuous, to say the very least."

"When did doing something nice for someone become presumptuous?" Adelaide asked.

"When it is not their business," Severus said. "I never asked her to do it, and I wish she would have went about her day and left me alone."

"Forgive me," Adelaide said, "but that is ridiculous. Kindness, in this day and age, shouldn't be taken for granted."

Severus stalled, potion bottle in hand, and stared at her with a narrow, assessing gaze. "What a brilliant outlook you have on life, Miss Harlowe. There really is nothing quite like true naiveté, is there?"

Adelaide sighed. "I could easily say the same about you and that incredible stroke of cynicism that follows you like a second shadow. Believing that there are kind people still left in this world does not make me naïve, Mister Snape. It just proves to me that the world hasn't gone entirely down the toilet."

Severus thought on this, and after a moment of serious reflection said, "Kindness is a ruse. People, on the whole… people are all the same: dense, irrational, and self-seeking."

"You don't trust easily," Adelaide said. It was almost a question, but she seemed to know the answer from her tone."

"I don't trust anyone," Severus answered. "Not anymore."

It was not what he had meant to say at all, and it took him by surprise to hear the words come tumbling out of his mouth. He did not know what he intended to say, but now that it was out, there was nothing that could be done about it.

"Well," Adelaide said, "if it makes you feel any better, you can trust me."

Severus frowned. "And why would I do that? I know nothing about you that would warrant that level of confidence."

"Sometimes I think you forget that I am more than a face in a frame," Adelaide said, shaking her head. "Believe it or not, I know what it's like to experience betrayal, maybe not on the level you've experienced—don't look at me that way—but betrayal, big or small, is the one thing that we all can understand." Adelaide paused for a moment, apparently waiting to see if he would respond. When Severus simply went on inspecting the potion bottles in the bag she went on. "Yes, people are spiteful, stupid, and self-centered. But you can't let everyone that has hurt you, or lied to you, or used you ruin your trust for everyone else. That is the worst thing you could do."

This conversation, Severus decided, was a mistake. It had moved beyond foolish, slipped over the line into uncomfortable and appeared to be barreling straight toward inappropriate.

"The worst thing I could do is place my trust in someone that does not deserve it," he said, hoping to put an end to the discussion. "And very few people, if any, deserve it,"

"How do you know," Adelaide began, and Severus could sense she was trying to keep her tone strictly conversational rather than scolding, "that someone doesn't deserve it, if you won't even give them the chance?"

Severus sat a potion bottle down on the table with a little more force than necessary, and sighed. "I have been burned too many times, Miss Harlowe. I have no desire to feel that sting again."

"I suppose I can't fault you for that," she replied, " but I still think you are being unreasonable."

Severus gave her a deeply scathing stare, but Adelaide pressed on, unperturbed. "Ask yourself, honestly now, if you truly think this student of yours came here today to gain something for herself. Is she the type of person that would do such a thing?"

 _No_ , Severus thought almost instantly, though he refused to say it aloud. He did not think Hermione Granger had a malicious streak in her, but he did not have the best track record when it came to judging someone's character.

"How should I know?" he said instead. "She and I were never on what you would call speaking terms."

"Do you want to know what I think?" Adelaide said. Her tone gave every indication that she was going to tell him regardless of what he said, so Severus just kept his mouth shut. "I think you have trouble accepting people when they're kind to you. You don't know how to handle it, so you shut down and just assume the worst of everybody."

"Genius," Severus muttered under his breath, and Adelaide gave him a pointed look.

"Don't make fun of me, Mister Snape, especially when you know I'm right."

"I never said you were right," Severus snapped. "You don't know the first thing about—"

"Tell me I'm wrong, then," she interrupted. He fell silent.

Severus sat back on the sofa, his fingertips kneading at the corners of his eyes. How in the hell did she manage to do that to him every time? How could she unravel him like an old sweater in a matter of minutes? She knew the exact thing to say to wear him down so much that he was forced to see himself clearly, and he hated it with such passion that it almost made it unbearable.

"You are, by far, the most insufferable person I think I have ever met," he said after he had counted to ten and collected himself. "How do you stand yourself?"

"Again, I could say the exact same thing about you," Adelaide said, taking the remark in stride. "In all seriousness, though, you've got to let people in, or at least trust them not to do you wrong. You might surprise yourself with what you find."

"It may have escaped your notice," Severus said, "but people are not lined up in the the streets to have me as their friend."

Adelaide smiled, looking at him with a mixture of care and caution. "I can think of one."

"You don't count," Severus said. He went back to unpacking the bag of potions, trying his level best to give off an air of boredom and apathy. "I'm required to deal with you."

Adelaide bit back a laugh. "Are you always such a gentleman?"

Severus looked up from the potion bottle in his hand, and felt something in him give a little. Perhaps it was his resolve, perhaps it was his patience, he might have even called it his guard. Whatever it was, it was no longer wholly intact, and Severus was surprised to find he did not entirely mind. He looked at her with absolutely no reservations, and said in the driest tone he could manage and just a ghost of a smile, "Sod off, Miss Harlowe."

* * *

Author's Notes:

First order of business, I need to give credit where credit is due.  _All hours wound; the last one kills_  is the English translation of a Latin motto found on a sundial. Not sure where said sundial is or if it still there—all we need to know is that the words stuck, and I decided to borrow them.  _Here Comes the Sun_  needs no explaining, unless you didn't know it was a Beatles song—but now that I've told you, go and give it a listen. It is quite nice.

As always reviews are welcomed and appreciated, should be so inclined to leave one. Thank you to everyone who has read, clicked the follow and favorite buttons, and left a review. It means a great deal to be able to share this story with you. The next installment will come at the end of March or early April. Until then, happy reading!


	6. Chapter V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severus Snape has been granted release from St. Mungo's following a lengthy recovery, but it is with one simple condition.

**Characters are property of J.K Rowling and the Harry Potter Universe. Thankfully, she allows me to borrow them for a bit of fun.**

**Silhouette**

**Chapter V**

* * *

All things considered, Severus Snape was not looking forward to leaving his bed.

He rolled over, pulling the duvet over his head to block out the grey, cheerless sunlight, and tried to think of a good reason for a proper lie-in. He had always regarded days as more or less interchangeable. A person woke in the morning, trudged through the hours, dealt with a menagerie of people going about the same things—more or less, of course—and at the end of it all, that same person would stumble into his bed, only to wake up the following morning to do it all over again.

If a person was lucky enough, or unlucky enough given the circumstances, there would always be another day. When you were finished with one, there was another waiting to take its place, whether you were ready for it or not. For Severus, the previous week had somehow managed to morph into one absurdly long day, one filled with dust and boxes.

Several nights prior, as he sat in his usual evening sulk, Severus had finally discovered his problem. He felt like an unwanted stranger in his own home. Tobias and Eileen, though long dead, were still subtly woven throughout Spinner's End, and in such a way that left him feeling woefully claustrophobic. He saw his mother staring past the faded curtains covering the windows. He saw his father lying prone on the sofa, a lit cigarette poised to fall from his grasp once unconsciousness tightened its noose. Pieces of his parents, his childhood, his life leading up to the fall of the Dark Lord, and his convalescence could be seen everywhere his eyes lingered. He had ignored it as best as he could, and for as long as he could, but the notion was always there flinging itself at him like a stone. A home was meant to be a sanctuary, a place of respite from the world and all of its troubles. Spinner's End only left Severus with a strange feeling that spread like a malignant mist through his thoughts until it ruined his day.

Severus woke before the sun had risen on a cold Tuesday morning and, still in his night clothes, wandered the house for hours, opening drawers and bureaus and cabinet doors. He was merely looking, taking an inventory of parts of his past that he remembered and discovering items he had forgotten. A sort of mental exhaustion had set in before Severus had even thought of his usual cup of morning tea, but he had also made a decision. He could not live like he had in the past. He could not live in the house in its haunted state, even though the familiarity of it was what he had craved for so long. It reminded him of everything he wished to forget, and if he allowed it, he would be in a constant battle of chasing after his own mind.

_Do not think of that. Do not look in that box. Do not open that drawer._

That, somehow, seemed more tiresome than sorting through his baggage. Severus saw to the private areas of the house first; the chest of drawers in the master suite he had claimed for himself and the boxes pushed to the back of the walk-in wardrobe. The moth-eaten and decades-old socks and sweaters he tossed into the fire, the same as the photographs he stumbled across, Muggle and magic alike. They were of no further use, except to feed the flames.

Thoughts of the past four days skittered across his mind like dead leaves. The entire second level of Spinner's End had been wiped clean, made a blank slate for him to do with it what he wished. There was not a trace to be found of his mother or his father, or his youth for that matter. The wardrobes and bureaus stood bare, the doors slung open in a silent plea to be filled again. Still, he caught himself noticing how oddly bereft and still the house had become, and scowled. Why the unending preoccupation of second guessing himself when it came to doing what needed to be done?

With more effort than he cared to admit, Severus rolled over again and stretched, feeling the muscles in his arms and legs tense and finally relax. The usual sensation of thousands of tiny needles sinking into his neck came and went, as it always did, and he grimaced through the discomfort. His hand went to his throat, and he rubbed absently at the skin that would never look or feel quite the same again, and wondered if he would ever feel like he used to, if the phantom pangs of his injury would ever subside. The cynical side of him was quick to point out that it would never be as it was, and he might as well get used to the idea.

"To the victor belong the spoils," Severus said. He untangled himself from the blankets and went downstairs for his morning tea.

Feeling uninspired, Severus put the water on to boil and planted himself at the kitchen table to wait. His list of things to accomplish for the day consisted of three things: see to the shelves and books in the sitting room, eat something other than beans and toast for lunch, and possibly take a nap before his nuisance came to call at a quarter past five.

Adelaide Harlowe had been a part of his life for a week now, and Severus had not even begun to learn how to live with his new attendant. Though she did not know the cause, she had noticed his change in demeanor following the sudden purge of his past, and had even gone so far as to describe him as somewhat tolerable. Severus wanted to resent her for the remark, but all he felt was indifference.

Steam roiled up from inside the kettle, and Severus watched as the wisps curved and coiled in on themselves before evaporating. It was in these unguarded moments that his thoughts always came back to the current situation of having to deal with her for the next six months. So far, their agreed-upon arrangements were bearable. Severus only had to set aside the time and be there when she appeared. Even with the so-called schedule, the idea of someone looking over his shoulder, listening just out of sight kept occurring to Severus, so much that he caught himself glancing about the empty room to discover where the person might be on a frequent basis. Their conversations were few and far between when she appeared, and did not last long when they occurred, but Adelaide did not seem to care. To say there was something oddly intrusive about the way she was content simply being there, waiting in silence, until he needed her was an understatement.

Severus put his hands behind his head, stretched mightily, and forced all thoughts of Adelaide Harlow into some deep, dark corner of his mind. Was it too much to ask for a solid dose of hot caffeine before his subconscious reminded him of just how remarkably frustrating his life had become?

Half an hour later, caffeinated and showered, Severus found himself standing in the sitting room, taking in a visual inventory of task one on his list. He inhaled through his nose and breathed out firmly, his eyes trailing the rows of books. The shelving units in the room were the last projects in the great purge, but now that he had come face to face with it and had almost succeeded in completely wiping the slate clean, he suddenly lost any desire for it. If any part of the house held the most value—academic, sentimental, or whatever—it was those shelves and what they contained. Spell books and bound grimoire and apothecary journals from his tenure at Hogwarts, handwritten recipe books and years-old paperbacks that had been bequeathed generations through the Snape bloodline (his father had inherited Spinner's End and all of its totems from his own father; the house and nearly everything in it was as old as the town and the mill itself.).

Everybody, Severus suspected, had their own secret primal reaction to their childhood home and what it represented, but he also wondered if most people disliked it as much as he did. Somehow he was sure there was a fatuous truth to the notion, though most people lacked the gumption to admit it, aloud or in secret. He took pride in the fact that he had finally admitted—after years of pretending not to notice—that this was his home, and he could do damn well what he pleased with it. With the happy thoughts of Tobias Snape turning somersaults in his grave, Severus rolled up his sleeves and started to work.

The floor-to-ceiling units had been bewitched over the years to accommodate the remarkable number of books they held. It was hard to notice, especially for someone who had grown accustomed to seeing the overstuffed units from infancy, but the books were stacked four deep, sometimes five on certain shelves. Three hours into the business of sorting through what he would keep, what he would donate, and what was fodder for the fire, Severus realised that he had managed to underestimate the task. He stretched out his legs, his back against the wall, and drummed his fingers in a droll rhythm on the floor.

He was not necessarily happy about the progress—he still had several shelves left to clear and organize—but he did feel unexpectedly liberated by the small dent he had made. The use of magic would have sped the process along, but Severus desperately wanted something to fill the void the days were slowly becoming. The longer he spent indoors, with little to occupy his time, the more difficult it became to quell the insatiable need to always be doing something with his hands. Of course there was also the unfortunate chance that the books would mix themselves up after they started to flutter like birds from the shelves once charmed. The current inventory stood at six full boxes that he would be keeping and rearranging, one box of would-be kindling, and two boxes that included paperbacks and a panoply of tragically outdated encyclopedias that he would be taking to the nearest Muggle charity bank.

The thought occurred to him that if his father had lacked absurd desire to maintain the guise of living above his means, and the nearly constant battle he waged to keep magic out, he would likely not be sitting on the floor thirty years later, sorting through these useless books by hand. Tobias Snape was not what Severus considered a learned man (he had never once seen his father crack open anything remotely literary, save for an Eagle comic magazine), but he had a streak of arrogance that rivaled even most cutthroat, and equally educated Pureblood families in the Wizirding world. Severus used to joke, when he had had a few pints too many, that Tobias was the poor man's version of Lucius, which the actual Lucius Malfoy did not find funny in the slightest.

 _And for what?_  Severus thought. He released an irritable sigh, and crossed his arms over his chest. There were times when they might not have had a pot to piss in or a functioning window to throw it out of, but they had stacks of worthless, tedious books because that was expected of respectable, normal people. It was an honest wonder Severus had turned out to be as studious as he had, but he supposed it was his subconscious effort to spite the old bigot.

On the far side of the room, the fire in the grate sputtered and spit and, for a moment, the flames turned a pale pearlescent seafoam colour. All thoughts of Tobias Snape were replaced with the drive of self preservation, Severus was on his feet, the business end of his wand aimed and ready to manage who or whatever was attempting to get through the Floo network. There was a loud bang followed by indistinguishable noises that sounded a lot like speaking. The flames flared one final time, regained their natural orange hue, and went out promptly in a plume of dark, foul smelling smoke as though doused with an invisible bucket of water.

He waited, anticipating a second attempt, but nothing happened. Severus glanced at the clock—just after noon—and found he had no idea who the would-be intruder might have been, or how they might have been so stupid as to try to come through in broad daylight without invitation. He had only just ignited the hearth with a wave of his wand, and double checked the charms in place to prevent unwanted guests when a familiar knock sounded at the door.

Suddenly it all made perfect sense.

He crossed the room in two strides, and all but took the door off its hinges when he opened the door. When Severus saw Augusta Barnes standing on the stoop, the icy wind licking at the flamboyantly lime green trench coat she wore, he thought he was going to take the civil road. When she smiled at him, it turned out that was much too hard.

"What do you want?" he half-spat, half-muttered. He turned around in an agitated flourish before the Healer had the time respond, and left her standing out in the snow.

"It's a pleasure to see you too, Severus." Augusta saw herself in, closing the door behind her as she entered. Severus watched as her eyes roved over the sitting room before they finally came to rest on him; still as critical as ever. She had silver Floo Powder on the bridge of her nose and the left lens of her glasses. "You know, you really should open your Floo. I wasn't entirely expecting walking into a brick wall. "

Severus glared at her. "I wasn't expecting you at all."

There was a moment of suffocating silence. Augusta took off her glasses and wiped the residual glittery powder on the lapel of her coat. When she offered him a sideways smile, Severus realised she was content to wait him out if it came to it. As it happened, he was fully content with waiting her out also.

He needed something to do. Anything. Without thinking Severus went over to where the six large and very heavy corrugated boxes stood. He picked up one, placed it on another, and with little regard to his back and cracking knees, picked both of them up.

She must have caught a glimpse of his strained face the moment he picked them up because she said, "I think you've rather missed the point of not doing anything strenuous."

Severus hefted the boxes in his hands, carried them past Augusta, and dropped them near the door as though they had scalded him. He would feel that workout in the morning. "I don't recall you mentioning anything of the sort," Severus said. He wiped his hands on his trousers, and gave her a pointed look. "Come to think of it, you didn't say much at all. You left Thomm, of all people, to see me to the vultures who happened to be conveniently waiting to pick my bones."

"Had I known—"

He cut her off, quelling the urge to raise his voice. "You would have seen to the job yourself? That would have required you to extract yourself from Zella Shrout's arse for a moment."

A sour expression crept across Augusta's face, but she remained silent.

"And as if my scathing reception into society wasn't enough, you actually allowed the woman to interview with  _The Prophet_. Anyone— _anyone_ —with half a brain could have made the connection. I expected better from you."

Severus was not sure if the words stung his Healer like he intended them to—she looked at him for a long time, her hands knotting in the folds of her cloak. Silence hung between them; and then Augusta sighed.

"Severus, when I first met you, I had to admit to myself that you were somewhat of a paradox. I could not figure out how someone could simultaneously care so much about what people think, and yet could not care less about the people themselves. Why do you give them that?"

"I don't give anyone anything," he snapped. "My life is not public record."

"No, it isn't," the Healer agreed. "But your involvement with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter put an end to all that. You can't run from that, Severus. I've told you this. It's a part of who you are, and there will always be someone there to remind you of it."

"I suppose you're going to tell me to live and let live, right?" he muttered, feeling his already strained patience stretch a bit further.

"Actually, I was going to apologize to you for what happened with the crowd and for the articles. I don't have the authority to prevent publication. I wish I did, but I can only do so much to protect my patients. I will say the correspondent with  _The Sunday Prophet_  would likely have mentioned you personally had I not intervened on your behalf. "

The comment galled him and he frowned. "So it's a 'thank you' you want—"

"I want you to stop worrying yourself over how you think others see you," said Augusta, her tone implying that her own patience was running thin. "No one ever notices the ordinary, Severus, and I think your history alone, and what you've done for all of these people that have an opinion of you—whether positive or not—will always cast you in the spotlight." She paused long enough to reach out and place a hand on his shoulder. Though he would have liked to, Severus did not shy away. "You are, in their eyes, the eyes of this backward society, significant enough to notice. Use it to your advantage, and when the time comes, prove the bastards wrong. "

This was the part of his life that Severus knew Augusta Barnes, nor anyone else, truly understood. He wondered, as he stood there feeling her hand clutching the fabric of his shirt, if she had ever experienced the small torture of pretending to be oblivious to the looks of distaste or fear, or the wide arcs complete strangers would give him as a precaution. He would bet his handsome Ministry pension that she had never been clobbered in the head with a snowball, or attacked by strangers upon the release from a nine month hospital visit both in the flesh and in writing.

Severus had noticed the subtle shifting and scrutiny of his character in the public eye well before the Dark Lord's demise, and he had used it to play his part as a loyal follower to further gain a foothold in Lord Voldemort's council. Near the end, when it began to wear him down along with everything else, he had tried to liken those nameless strangers to the students he taught. It was a different thing entirely to witness such gestures from students, he had grown accustomed to them, had expected them even, given his harsh practices from behind the teaching podium and the general ignorance of the charges he was expected to instruct.

For a wild moment, Severus felt weak, on the verge of falling back into the episodes of anxiety he had somehow managed to control. He took a deliberate step away from her and walked to the window to clear his thoughts. He counted footprints she had left in the snow leading from the pavement to the front door, pushing everything else from his mind. It was too much, yes, but he had to be better than that if he was to ever be fully released from Augusta Barnes's care.

"You are not the person you were when I met you nine months ago, Severus, and thank God for that," Augusta continued, and he could feel her eyes on his back as he stared out into the snow-covered streets, "but you are back in a world that hasn't changed in the slightest. People are still very much afraid of what happened a year ago, and you were right in the center of it. That is the very reason I thought the Silhouette Initiative would be beneficial to you."

"Ah, yes," said Severus, turning around at last. "My St. Mungo's issued nanny."

"I never said it would be easy, considering your aversion to company," said Augusta. "But it was a better alternative, wouldn't you agree?"

"I suppose," Severus lied. He hated it, hated feeling like he was constantly under someone's thumb. "It was either her or Thomm."

"Your Silhouette is female." It was not quite a question, and it only added to his poor mood.

"Don't worry, I pity her also." The words simply came to him, and he said them without thinking. "Not only has she taken to the job as though meant for no other purpose, but she's also at a serious disadvantage being bound to someone like myself."

To that Augusta did not reply. She only shook her head at him as if to say he was being ridiculous, and left it at that. The two of them were treading the edge of another argument she obviously did not want to have. If she had learned anything at all, Severus suspected, it was to pick her battles carefully when it came to him. It also troubled him to admit Augusta Barnes rarely chose wrong in that regard, but that was beside the point.

Severus gave the Healer a look of dubious politeness after a moment, and walked back to the bookshelf to escape. The particular row he picked held the books that were strictly Muggle, and held very little value in his eyes. He would be hard-pressed to find a bookstore that would offer payment or even accept them as a donation given the age and condition of most. The longer Severus perused the titles and spines cankered with cracks and mildew spots, the more he wished he had not bothered with this shelf at all.

"May I ask what it is you are doing, exactly?" said Augusta after a moment. Severus looked over his shoulder to see that she had now taken a seat on the very edge of the sofa.

"What does it look like?" Severus replied, in a tone that suggested she was being rather slow. He summoned another box and selected the book directly in front of him. "I'm downsizing."

He placed the dog-eared copy of  _Landmarks of Southern Wales_  in the box for donation. His mother, tethered to Spinner's End by her husband and young son, had lived vicariously through the sepia-colored photographs. When Severus had grown old enough to keep a secret or at least lie convincingly enough to his father, she had Apparated with him for the first time to her favorite landmark—Cardiff Castle—to spend the day. It had been a pleasant day filled with candy floss and noisy queues, and turned out to be quite a memorable experience despite the initial shock of departure and his father's outburst that night when they had finally returned.

Severus winced inwardly at the memory, and quickly covered the book with another before the notion could gain a proper foothold. "I should just burn the lot," he muttered, though not soft enough for Augusta not to hear.

"The bibliophile in you wouldn't stand for it," the Healer said somewhat teasingly. "Besides, those books might benefit someone else down the road."

Severus smiled for the first time, though it was an inward sort of wry smile, and selected another book. "Tell me," he said looking back at her, "what you think the demand is for a third printing of…  _Knitting in the Nordic Traditions?_ "

Augusta grimaced, though Severus could not tell if it was in response to the prospect of such a dry read, or that he'd managed to catch one of those happy moments when he had outmaneuvered her.

"That's what I thought," he said, and continued to place more books in the box without so much as a second glance.

"It was obviously useful to someone in its time," Augusta offered. "Your mother, perhaps."

"My mother was a Pureblood witch," Severus snapped. "It was of no more use to her than a hole in the head. It was more than likely fished out of some secondhand bin by my father, along with all this other nonsense, nothing but a means to keep her—" he stopped himself, realising that he had been very close to shouting. The rest of the sentence crumbled to dust in his mouth as Severus threw the book in the box destined for the fire, refusing to give it a second thought. He looked out of the corner of his eye at Augusta, who appeared to be going though some great internal struggle with herself.  _Fantastic. Bloody fantastic._

"Severus, I didn't—"

"Never mind it," he said, cutting off what he knew would be a rambling attempt at an apology. "It's just a book, and they're both long dead."

Augusta looked as though she would have liked to press the issue further, but she spared him and stayed quiet. Her expression strongly hinted that all of the puzzle pieces had finally clicked neatly into place. Severus ignored it, and went back to putting the rest of the books in the burn box.

"Do you know why I paid you a visit today?" Augusta said. He had not heard her move, but she was behind him now, standing over him as she did when he was still deep in his recovery at St. Mungo's.

Severus turned and looked at her with expert nonchalance. "To annoy me?"

Augusta made an amused noise through her teeth. "To see if you had managed to prove me wrong. Again. In my experience, the hardest part of going forward with recovery is the actual living part of it, outside the walls of the hospital, I mean. If you want my honest opinion, part of me thought you wouldn't be able to handle it."

Severus frowned. "Thank you for the excellent vote of confidence."

"Would you just shut up and listen!" Augusta snapped. "Because you need to hear me say this as much as I need to say it." She waited, apparently to see if he had any more fight left him. Severus simply waved her on.

"I've never told you this, and I should have long before now," she said, "but I'm proud of you, Severus. Not just because you made me look like a fool in front of my colleagues when I told them you would likely never wake, or stand, or walk, but because you never looked back once you started, especially when a lesser man would have. God knows I would have had I been in your shoes. If anyone deserves to be happy it's you, and if setting this entire damn house ablaze and starting over from nothing does that for you, then I'd be glad to sit with you and watch it burn."

He did not know what he had expected her to say, but it most definitely was not that. For the first time in a long time, Severus Snape found that he had absolutely nothing to say in response. When he tried, the words turned to mist in his mind before he could string them together to form a coherent sentence. Augusta seemed to notice his silent struggle and saved him from the trouble—just as she always had.

"You don't have to say anything, Severus," Augusta said, and that was when he noticed the single tear sliding down her cheek. She wiped it away on a crisp white handkerchief she plucked out of thin air. "Look at me. I've turned into a slobbering mess." The Healer gave him a stern pat on the shoulder, which seemed to be just as much for her as it was for him. "This is a happy moment, after all."

"Yes," Severus said. "Yes, it is."

Augusta sniffed and blew her nose on the charmed handkerchief. "My lunch hour is almost up, and you look like you've got your hands full here, so I'll leave you to it."

Severus watched as she headed toward the front door, his subconscious screaming at him to say something to her before she left. "Use the Floo, Augusta," was what finally slipped out, but somehow that was enough. She obliged, not nearly as emotional as she had been, and disappeared in a flash of bright green flames as soon as he had lifted the charm.

The rest of the afternoon progressed in a blur of musty book pages, numerous cups of tea—a few of which were spiked with something a little stronger than honey—and mental playbacks of the meeting with Augusta. Severus had absolutely no idea why the conversation aggravated him with such precision, but it did. What she had said began to pull at him the moment she had left, like an incessant toddler tugging at his shirt sleeve, the words slowly playing themselves over and over again in his mind in whispered tones. He had come to expect that things were strictly business between them; Augusta Barnes's job was to oversee his recovery and his job was to recover. It was that simple. Severus was content in keeping his gratitude for her and what she had done thoroughly contained because that simplified things. And she had to go and break the unspoken code he thought they shared to never, ever make it personal.

People, Severus found, were not satisfied until they had made almost everything personal.

He supposed he should have been appreciative for what she had said, and he supposed that there was a small part of him that did appreciate it, but it was an awfully small part and naturally suspicious. No one, apart from Albus Dumbledore, Lucius Malfoy, and his own mother, mind you, had ever said anything of the sort to him, and if he was being perfectly honest with himself, Severus was not convinced that any of the three of them had really, truly meant it. The whole ordeal left a sour taste in his mouth and had completely robbed him of the delight of finally having more shelf space than books.

In the end, Severus decided the obvious solution to his problem was to put it as far from his mind as possible, at least until he had worked up the nerve to say something to her that was not Floo-related. He sat down in his chair, still feeling like a colossal idiot, and closed his eyes for a much needed mental and physical reprieve.

"I should have used magic," Severus said to himself.

A dull, pulsing pain had taken root in his neck and lower back from the repeated bending and turning and lifting, but he had wanted the satisfaction of touching every aged spine, giving each useless book one final triumphant glare, as if to prove that he had conquered them and all that they represented. He had finally done it, and it was glorious to think that he now had the room and the means to replace every single one of those books that had been used as a meager attempt to stamp out magic.

Severus rubbed at his sore neck, his fingers tracing the length of subtle scar tissue that traveled from the base of his right ear to his collar bone. It was like some sort of perverse map carved into his skin that told the story of where he had been and what he had to do to get there.

 _Stupid fucking snake_ , he thought.  _I'll have to cover this before going into town_.

Augusta had always said it was such a shame those battle lines made him self-conscious; he had gone through such lengths to obtain them, after all. But Severus knew that was easy for someone to say who did not have any.

For a moment he thought of fashioning a crude Portkey of sorts to whisk the four full boxes of donation books straight to the cellar of the secondhand shop, but decided that he would rather not risk the  _Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office_  showing up to his door if some poor sod touched them before the spell had worn off. Instead, he pulled himself out of his chair with a groan and summoned his coat and boots. He had started the whole process without magic, and he could very well finish it that way, notwithstanding his throbbing back. He could do with some fresh London air, anyway.

Severus Disapparated from Cokeworth to London, the four shrunken boxes of books knocking around in his left coat pocket. He had no particular destination in mind, but had simply decided that he would keep walking until he happened upon the first establishment that looked like it needed what he had.

The pavements were bustling with Londoners going about their evening business. They all had the same look. Fatigued eyes, bodies hunched away from the cold February drizzle and half-frozen puddles of dirty snowmelt. From the looks of some of them, the customary weekday dance of dashing for the trains was soon to begin, which had a certain appeal it—they were often too preoccupied to notice what was going on around them. As he had anticipated none of the Muggles paid Severus any attention, except for the occasional half-uttered insult, or more rarely an apology, for treading too close.

Severus passed three cafes, the entrance to a swarming Tube station, and countless other shops that resembled those found in a typical retail park before he found a bookstore that had potential. It was not charming or eccentric by any means, but rather a hole-in-the-wall tucked between a television repair shop and what appeared to be women's clothing boutique. He would have easily passed it up had it not been for the flashing neon sign that promised payment for unwanted books. He had planned on donating the books, but figured he may as well get something for the effort he made to sort through and get the books here. That, and the ever-present rain had started to fall with renewed force. Satisfied, Severus ducked inside, and emerged almost half an hour later with two twenty pound banknotes in his pocket.

He still had time before he would have to return home to deal with his Silhouette, so Severus drifted back the way he came, stopping only once at a tiny, but well-stocked Italian delicatessen for the advertised meatball soup. He bought an order to go, and made his way to the alley behind the shop where he could Apparate without being seen.

Being that the house stood at the end of the street, Severus knew the chances of him being seen were little and less, so when he opened his eyes, he was staring at his front door. That was one of the few perks of Spinner's End—there was hardly anyone left to see, and even fewer who would be taken seriously if they saw something.

Severus turned and looked up the snow-covered street—the mill chimney standing cold and severe just at the horizon—and sighed. The day was edging closer and closer to a quarter past five from the look of the harsh, looming shadow casted by the smoke stack. And he still had to see to the books that had survived the purge before his attention was required elsewhere.

 _Might as well get on with it_ , Severus thought, though a slightly anxious part him wondered what he would do to occupy his time once he finished. He let himself in, kicking the snow from his boots as he went to work.

He ate the soup from the polystyrene container with one hand and went through the books with the other; it was easy to fall back into the old habit of having work as a supper companion (He had done it for years at Hogwarts, against Albus Dumbledore's insisting that he show up in the Great Hall for more than Welcome and Leaving Feasts). The current task, he found, proved to be much more enjoyable than grading third year essays, even if he was sitting on the floor.

The work began by sorting the books into piles according to their subject matter, then came the organizing of each of those piles into alphabetical order by author's last name. Book after book was put back into place, and though he appeared to be making decent headway, Severus had barely put half of the first stack into the cases.

"There must be a hundred or more, those books."

His heart nearly leapt from his chest, and Severus looked over his shoulder, spooked. Adelaide Harlowe was staring at the books, her head turned at an obscured angle as she mouthed the titles.

"So many shelves…" she said, as though speaking with an old friend. "From the moment I saw them, I wondered what someone like you filled them with."

"You would do well to make yourself known before you start slinking about in the house, Miss Harlowe" he snapped.

"It's Adelaide, please," she said, offering a rueful smile. "And sorry. I thought you heard me." The portrait edged closer to where he sat. Severus tried to go back to the business of examining the titles between occasional spoonfuls of meatball and broth, but suddenly found he was no longer the mood for either.

"It must have taken you years to collect so many," Adelaide said. She looked at him with rapt eagerness, as if it would coax him into talking. Severus turned up the flimsy white polystyrene bowl and swallowed what little of the soup remained. Why did everyone insist that he talk?

"No longer than it would take one to collect anything else," he said, defeated. He had never before felt his lack of privacy more keenly than at this moment, cross-legged on his sitting room floor surrounded by his displaced books and this unwanted houseguest gazing back at him.

"How many do you reckon you have?"

 _She could pester the tentacles off a Grindylow,_ Severus thought. He sighed, then said, "I've never felt the need to count them."

"Pity," Adelaide went on smoothly. "That would've been interesting to know. There seem to be a lot less compared to yesterday."

"I'm downsizing," Severus said.

"No harm in that I suppose, though I've always been rather fond of books," said Adelaide casually. "I've always preferred them to the telly. There is very little imagination in films and programmes these days"

Severus gave her an odd look.  _Not a Pureblood, then._

"You've heard of a telly, right?" Adelaide said after a moments reflection.

"I'm a wizard, not an idiot," he said sharply. "I know what a television is."

"I wasn't implying that you were an idiot," she said defensively. "I know that you are quite intelligent. I just know that some wizards aren't familiar with Muggle technology. I assure you, I meant no offense." When Severus offered no reply, Adelaide continued. "The only thing I find worth watching these days is the news, most of which is depressing—people fighting and killing other people over tiny strips of land. Personally, I've seen enough fighting to last a lifetime. I'm sure you have too."

"Indeed," he said. "Which is why I prefer not to discuss the War or anything related to it, if you don't mind."

"Of course I don't mind," she assured him. "Honestly, I don't like talking about it either. We can talk about whatever you like. I'm here to help you, you know."

That struck him as ironic, and before he could catch his errant tongue he said, "For someone who doesn't like to talk about the fighting and killing, you picked a fantastic career with this ridiculous initiative.

"I wouldn't necessarily call me doing this a career, but I disagree," Adelaide said. "I may not like to talk about it, but that doesn't mean I won't. I was told when I was selected for this particular branch of Silhouette that it would likely mean helping the victims move on from what happened to them."

"I have done my part, Miss Harlowe," Severus said flatly. He pulled another full box toward him and began reading the titles and sorting them into piles, hoping she would take the hint and drop the subject altogether. "It's everyone else that needs to do the moving on."

"And they will with time," she said, sounding a little too much like his Healer. "We're coming up on a year since Harry Potter put an end to You-Know-Who, and I suspect once people see he's not coming back the old fears will start to settle, and everything can get back to normal."

Severus scoffed. She never ceased to amaze him with her absurdly optimistic outlook on life and the people in it. What a fool she was.

"You don't ever come back from something like that," he told her. "I lived through the Dark Lord's first rise to power and the fear he left in his wake smoldered through to the second coming. You talk of this supposed change, but even you refuse to speak his name. As I said, you don't come back from that, Miss Harlowe. You just can't."

And to Severus's great satisfaction, Adelaide fell silent, the truth of his words sinking in its claws, ripping her happy little outcome to shreds.  _Good,_ Severus thought.  _Serves her right._

They sat in silence, Severus sorting his books, the portrait floating just out of his field of vision, until Adelaide's innate ability to handle him seemed to reassert itself. Severus had to admit it took her longer than he would have thought.

"I'm not afraid of the name, not anymore," she said, her tone stilted, almost rigid. "And you're right. Old habits die hard, but the point I'm trying to get at is that they do eventually die. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not six months from now, but they will." Adelaide smiled meekly. "I mean it's already started, what with Silhouette up and running now."

Against all principle of politeness and courtesy Severus laughed at her. "Is that what they tell you people when you signed up for this? Such world changers you are." He glared at the portrait, her fact cast in the same uneasy blue-white light, then said, "You have no idea what you're doing."

"No, I don't," Adelaide said, keeping right along with him. The raw irritation in her voice did not go unnoticed. "They told me nothing apart from whether or not I had been selected. I had no warning when I was bound to my Match, except for a basic profile that listed little more than a name and the terms of the Bond. I thought they had forgotten me…" She paused, and held up her left wrist, revealing a brand that matched Severus's. "But this seared itself into my skin five months later, and here we are."

Severus opened his mouth and closed it again; the sight of the double spiraled mark left him with the feeling of having been winded. The ever-present habit of not being able to find the words was starting to grate on his nerves. Instead he turned his attention to the books in front of him that had become lost in the conversation. He put at least ten on the shelves before he finally said, "I was told even less than you."

"That's not surprising," Adelaide said. "How the Initiative works, the magic I mean, is very clandestine. Though I suspect that is in large part to protect the Matches, the people like you. When the terms of your contract are up, or whenever it's decided to terminate the Bond, I'll be dismissed from Silhouette entirely. One Match, One Bond," she went on dutifully, and without much conviction. "No further contact."

"I see," he said. And he did see, more or less.

"Thinking it would be immediate, I volunteered almost four months to the day after the war ended," she said conversationally. "I wanted to help, and the opportunity presented itself shortly after I made up my mind that I had to do something."

"Valiant of you," Severus said. After the words slipped out, he noticed how terribly he had done at disguising his cynicism.

Adelaide shrugged. It was the sort of shrug that could have meant a great number of things. "It felt like the thing to do, so I did it."

"You don't have to explain yourself to me," he said. What he really wanted to say was that he could not have cared less, but figured it would probably do him well to remain civil. It was not really her fault that they were in this situation, after all.

"I know I don't, Adelaide said. "But I still think you deserve to know, you being required to deal with me and all. I didn't sign up for this for a laugh, or for something to occupy my free time with. I did it because things need to progress, and if I can help just one person do that, then that's better than most can say."

Severus contemplated the portrait without enthusiasm; something in Adelaide's expression made him feel tired, and if he was being honest with himself, a touch guilty too. He quickly shut that thought down, burying it deep where it belonged. Reluctantly and resentfully, Severus could not help but feel real empathy for the girl, though for the life of him he could not explain why.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes with the hope of finding the same mental escape he had earlier, only to have his thoughts interrupted by an obnoxiously loud pecking noise at the front of the house. Severus looked up to see an enormous eagle owl perched on the flimsy trellis supporting the empty window planter. An absurdly ordinary white envelope was crushed in its beak. With some effort, he brought himself to his feet and went to open the window. The owl, eager to escape the weather, hopped inside without invitation and dropped its cargo to the floor with very little regard to Severus's out stretched hand.

Severus retrieved the crinkled envelope and offered the lone remaining chunk of meatball that had been forgotten in the bowl as payment. The owl declined with an unimpressed hoot, and proceeded to relieve itself right there on the windowsill before it turned and disappeared out in the cold February sleet.

"Oh, dear," Adelaide said. Her hand jutted up toward her mouth in a weak attempt to mask the grimace growing on her face. "You'd think they would have the decency to be out of doors before they did their business."

"You think?" He shot back, irritated with the altogether disgusting prospect of cleaning away owl droppings on top of everything else. "Those damned birds…" Severus produced his wand, and removed the offending pile from ledge and the wall. The putrid dung bomb-like smell was likely to linger for a while, effectively zapping what decent mood he had. "I ought to mail the mess back as a receipt of delivery."

Adelaide cleared her throat, a weak attempt to get his attention.

Severus, ignoring her, turned the letter over in his hand in search of a return address or at least the name of the sender. It was unnaturally heavy, and there were no discerning marks. Nothing whatsoever except the words 'Professor Snape' written on the front in blue, willowy longhand.

At once, he realised that he recognized the handwriting, knew it from somewhere but could not exactly place it, and he also realised this particular lapse would irritate him the rest of the day if he allowed it. Severus tore irritably into the envelope only to have a Galleon and two Knuts fall to floor, one of which rolled off the carpet and under the sofa.

Severus quickly counted to be another Galleon, three Sickles, and a handful of Knuts inside the envelope as well as a slip of neatly folded parchment that appeared to be someone's stationary.  _Eleven pounds…_  he thought, running the math mentally.

"Granger," Severus muttered, at last. "I should've known she couldn't leave well enough alone."

"Is there a problem?" Adelaide asked.

"Hermione Granger, that former student of mine," he said, sounding very tired. "I paid her for the apothecary order she purchased and delivered over a week ago, and she didn't have change at the time. I told her not to worry with it, but of course, she didn't listen."

"Perhaps she was trying to do what she thought was the right thing?" Adelaide looked at him critically for a moment, then said, "Not everyone is out to get you in some sinister plot, despite what you may think."

"The point is that I told her not to worry about it. I didn't need or want the change, and made that fact perfectly clear to her."

"But she knew that it didn't rightfully belong to her," Adelaide pressed. "So, she sent it back. Why does that bother you so much?"

Severus cast an incredulous look in Adelaide's direction. "I want to be left alone. Why can't you wrap your silly head around that?"

Adelaide seemed nonplussed by this answer, as if she had been hoping to learn of some deep-seated wrong that had been done by this former student. But there was no such mystery to be revealed. He had spoken the truth. Severus sat down in his armchair and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. The beginning of quite a strong tension headache was becoming more and more pronounced.

"I don't believe a word of anything you just said," Adelaide told him suddenly. Severus looked up to see her glaring at him. "Nobody wants to be alone, I don't care who they are. That's just an excuse, and a poor one at that."

"An excuse for what?" he asked sharply.

"I don't know," she said. "But there is clearly some reason that you have chosen to do all you can in order to push people away. What is it that plagues you to the point that you would turn the most harmless of gestures, such as returning your change, into a major inconvenience?"

"There is nothing that plagues me, Miss Harlowe," Severus said bitterly. If there was, it certainly was not any of her business. "Some people are simply introverted and I happen to be one of them. I've never seen the need for idle conversation and insincere pleasantries. I prefer solitude—I find it easier to think, easier to read, and easier to work when I'm alone. I don't know what I need to do to prove to you that I'm telling you the truth, but I can assure you that you are wasting your time searching for some demon within me to slay. It doesn't exist!"

"You don't have to prove anything to me. It's yourself you have to convince. I just want to make you see that you don't have to go through life alone. I would be willing to bet that there are people out there that respect you and even some that would likely enjoy your company if you would let them. You could have friends if only you chose to reach out to them or let them in when they did the same to you. Maybe you should consider the possibility that the only thing keeping you from being happy is yourself."

Severus looked at Adelaide with stunned silence. In all the time that had known her—which was not very long, mind you—he had never seen her get this worked up about anything. He found it somewhat surprising that she seemed to have finally grown a backbone, but he found it equally annoying as well. He glanced at the clock and noticed, to his relief, that his allotted hour for conversing with his Silhouette had expired three minutes prior.

"Your time is up," Severus said dryly, standing from his chair. He wanted to be rid of her before he did or said something he would come to regret.

"I suppose it is," she said, still with a twinge of aggravation in her voice. "Enjoy the rest of your evening."

Before he could tell her that was hardly going to happen, the portrait faded to black and fell into one of the boxes of books it had been hovering over. Severus all but stomped over to where it had fallen and jerked it from the pile of books onto which it had landed. He had half a mind to activate the portrait again just for the satisfaction of having the final word in that unpleasant exchange, but the title of the book just underneath where the portrait had been caught his eye –  _The Extended Compendium of_   _Practical Applications of Indigenous Magical Flora._ For reasons he would not be able to explain afterward, Severus leafed through the index and confirmed what he had expected—the book contained an entire chapter on the Alihotsy plant, complete with supplemental footnotes and additional resources.

Later, as he lay awake, listening to the sleet hit his bedroom window, Severus wondered if it had been the exhaustion or the strong desire to prove Adelaide Harlowe wrong that drove him do it. Not that either mattered, of course. There was nothing that could be done about it now. The book containing the sources Hermione Granger would most likely need was probably halfway there by now.

* * *

Author's Notes: I know the chapter is late, and I apologize to those of you who are following and waiting for an update. Real life these last few months has been simply a nightmare. Six weeks ago, I lost my grandfather to a battle with cancer, bought and moved into a new home, and finished up one of the most stressful internships I've ever agreed to become a part of. Long story short, it was like my own personal Hell. Things are settling, though somewhat slowly. I ask that if you are reading along to be patient. Updates are coming, and I hope to get on some type of schedule again with frequency. As always, reviews are welcome and greatly appreciated. Happy reading to all!


	7. Chapter VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severus Snape has been granted release from St. Mungo's following a lengthy recovery, but it is with one simple condition.

**Characters are property of J.K Rowling and the Harry Potter Universe. Thankfully, she allows me to borrow them for a bit of fun.**

* * *

**Silhouette**

_Chapter VI_

Severus never remembered how the dreams started, partly because they happened with less frequency these days and he was quick to forget them when they did, but mostly it was because that was just the way of dreams.

Dreams, or in his case, nightmares, were really entities in and of themselves, capable of evolving and growing outside of logic and good, proper sense. When he was still hospital-bound, waking almost nightly from some imagined horror, his Healer or the on-duty Mediwizard would tell him it was only his imagination, the repressed terrors of his past playing over in succession in his mind while it was weakened by sleep. Their explanations sounded so very simple, trivial even, as though they had been meant to console a child, but Augusta and her staff did not have to suffer through the hellish nights as he did. After months of waking, drenched in sweat, and on the cusp of a massive cardiac episode, Severus started to listen, but for longer than he would ever admit he could have sworn the nightmares he suffered were as real as he was.

The nightmares rarely made sense to him, but always managed to leave him in the same wretched state when his subconscious had had enough and finally jolted him awake. It had been the snake at first with its dislocated jaws and jagged teeth. Nagini had almost managed to swallow him whole, like she had done with poor Charity Burbage, before Severus had woken in a right fit and had fallen out of his cot. Even now, when he thought on it long enough it would come back to him, the absurd clarity with which he could feel his face and bare, useless legs against the cold tiles of the hospital floor, and the hot tears that streaked his face, first out of fear and then eventually frustrated anger. It was an hour before the hospital staff found him and put him back to bed.

It did get better as Augusta said it would, though it happened very slowly. Nagini stalked him for months, like a malignant shadow looming just at the edge of his thoughts. Charity Burbage was there too, as silent as he had been the last night he saw her half-alive in the Malfoy dining hall. It felt like a bad joke, and even though the nightmares lost coherence with every second he untangled himself from unconsciousness, they still managed to leave a lasting impression on the rest of his day.

Severus looked to his window, watching as the wind and snow distorted the shadows cast by the streetlamps. The clock on the bedside table read eighteen minutes past three. He had only gone to bed two hours before, and had slept fitfully, fidgeting and groaning until the dreams had succeeded, and left him sitting bolt-upright with his heart hammering in his chest.

_Forty-seven days,_ Severus thought, and rubbed at his tired, bloodshot eyes. He ignored the dampness that came away on his fingers and the shaking of his hands as he rested his head on the headboard and sighed. Forty-seven days without a single night terror would have been a new record, and he should have felt relief in that, but this particular dream had been different. This one had been new, and that troubled him most of all.

The dreams that seemed to play on loop were the easiest to manage. Charity Burbage no longer bothered him the way she used to, staring into his panicked face the same way he had stared into her lifeless one. He had atoned for those sins tenfold, and he had accepted the fact that her death, though tragic and unjustified, would still have happened even if he had been so foolish to intervene.

This new dream had been worse than that, and Severus still had no idea how to come to terms with it. He tried to imagine Augusta's voice, could almost hear it pierce through the chaos in his head. She had always told him during the worst night terrors that the tightness in his chest would wane, that those thoughts would recede like the waters of a flash flood, and he would be stronger for having faced them. But Augusta Barnes seemed to Severus, in that moment, like a fraud peddling cheap talk because he did not feel strong or brave or better for having faced this new, fresh hell. No, what he felt was wrung out and more alone than he had been in quite a long time.

Severus shivered almost convulsively, and he pulled the duvet up around his shoulders despite knowing it was not likely to help. He closed his eyes and tried to think of anything else, to stave off the panic attack he could feel looming over him, but he could still hear  _her_ voice. She had been pleading with him at first, and then her tone had shifted swiftly to accusation when he only stood there motionless, stunned into silence. The sound of her voice playing through his subconscious had the power to paralyze him.

He closed his eyes to try to find relief, but only saw her staring up at him from the floor, his mind's eye displaying a nearly perfect match of the dream. Twenty-one years old and fresh-faced, Lily Potter was sitting cross-legged on the floor of a generic nursery his subconscious had conjured up. She held a baby's blanket in her lap, idly tracing the pattern of the stitching with her fingers. They were alone, just the two of them.

" _There's not one thing I could have done to change your ways,"_ she had said to him, then sighed. It was a sigh that could have meant a great number of things. " _And I tried. I tried so hard, but you wouldn't listen. You heard, but…you never…listened_." Lily brought the blanket to her nose and inhaled, as if to preserve and fortify a memory. It was such an intensely intimate moment that he had to look away. Then, "T _onight I'm going to lose it all, and it's because of you."_ Her words had been like ice, cold and sharp. Severus made to take a step toward her, but she had thrown the yellow blanket at his feet, and he stalled. " _Do you understand that? Everything, Severus!"_

Silence had followed that, and it had been far louder than anything else she could have said. Severus raised his wand hand and it was over in a quick burst of green light. As if it had been a dream within a dream, Lily Potter was lying on the floor, her green eyes staring up at him, though they could no longer see.

Severus opened his eyes again, the tightness in his chest and throat enough to suffocate him. He tried to breathe, though not without difficultly.  _Why did it have to be her?_  he thought miserably, seeing her dead, cold face in flashes. That had not been the first time he had cast the Killing Curse in his dreams, but the nameless, faceless victims had never, ever been  _her_. But that was the problem with bad dreams. The subconscious tugged at the frays of the mind until it found that one thread that could be unraveled with ineffable efficiency, and there was no controlling it once the right string had been discovered. It was really only an act of self-betrayal, the mind fighting itself in a cruel, unwinnable battle of wills.

Unable to stand it any longer, Severus shoved back the covers and moved to the edge of the bed to make his escape. He could not simply lie there and allow his mind to run amok, not with it treading so dangerously close to another anxiety episode. He retrieved the long-sleeved night shirt from the floor that he had shed sometime during the night, and pulled it over his head before he stood and grabbed his wand off the night stand before he left the room.

Severus made it as far as the staircase before the true realisation of his nightmare caught up with him. There, as he sat on the floor with his head pressed against the wall, his silver Patronus floated along length of the upstairs hall behind him. Unable to look at it directly, he watched the shadows the glowing, iridescent doe cast on the walls, and was seized by the irrational conviction that he had suffered a slight break with what was real. This had been a tiny fracture compared to the times he had fallen completely to pieces in the beginning. No matter how small, though, the needles of panic hammering into his chest and pressure building behind his eyes certainly made it feel more catastrophic than Severus knew it was.

"That wasn't real," he whispered to himself, and a single, traitorous tear slid down his cheek. He wiped it away quickly on his sleeve, as though it were indecent, and felt like an utter fool. The doe leapt over his and bounded down the stairs before it vanished through the wall. Severus's eyes landed on the spot where the deer had disappeared, then, in a sudden fit of immature, self-righteous anger, he pounded at the floor with his fists until it hurt. That pain was real, and it caused clarity to flood his brain.

He sat in the dark, his bare feet resting on the top step, and nursed his aching hands. "Not real… none of it is real," Severus said again, and this time he believed it. Augusta would have been proud.

The memory of Lily Potter prowled his mind, patient, eternal, and always waiting to strike. She had not surfaced in such a way since before the end of the War, and he had not realised it until the moment he saw her face that he had been grateful for her absence. To feel that way seemed wrong, and with each second he sat there thinking about it, the wrongness of it intensified.

"Fuck me," was all he said as he stood and descended the stairs, an impatient hand running through his hair. The day was off to a fantastic start.

Three and a half hours later found Severus half-awake, sitting upright in his chair, Adelaide Harlowe's Silhouette portrait, resting on his lap. He had planned on preparing a pot of tea, and smothering what drowsiness remained with each cup of caffeinated gold, but he had stopped to warm his feet by the fire, and had simply stayed there. Now he had a pain in his neck strong enough to vex the dead.

Severus stretched mightily, and the portrait slid off his lap and landed face down on the floor. He glared at it for along moment before he picked it up, wiped the glass front with his shirt, and sat it on the arm of the chair. He had almost gone through with something ridiculous during the small hours of the morning, but thankfully his good sense had told his nerve, in no uncertain terms, to keep quiet and not to even think about it. After all, he did not need Adelaide Harlowe. And he especially did not need her at three-thirty in the morning because he had had a bad dream, and did not feel like being alone with just his thoughts. As if to prove this to himself, Severus left the darkened portrait behind and shuffled sleepily to the kitchen for his morning tea and toast.

The kitchen table, which was made for four occupants but could only reasonably and comfortably accommodate two in the modest space, was pushed hard against a large window along the back wall—that way, his mother had once said, the tea in one's cup would never grow cold in the morning sun. It had really only been planted there permanently because that was the one place it would fit. Severus, not being one for early morning nonsense or a blinding winter sunrise, had pulled the curtains and charmed them a dull brown colour to block the glare. He sat, spreading orange and bergamot marmalade on one side of his toast, thoroughly disconsolate.

He needed something to do with himself, a routine of sorts that would keep his mind from going places where it ought not go; otherwise Augusta would be carting him off to an asylum. It was nearing the end of February, when the weather was not quite sure of what to do with itself and would change at a moment's notice from rain to freezing rain, and then finally to snow, so anything outdoors was out of the question. Severus had cleaned the house thoroughly from top to bottom, discarded what belonged in the bin, and organized what needed tidying, so that left little to do inside except for the rudimentary, everyday tasks he loathed, such as dish washing.

Severus took a bite of toast, then licked the marmalade from the corner of his mouth. Between bites, he caught himself recalling the nightmare that had resulted in slight bruising on his hands and the shadow in his mood, and frowned. He still missed her terribly—there was no point in trying to deny it—and he suspected there would always be a part of him that would never stop missing her or pondering the what-ifs and should-have-beens. This new abundance of time he had on his hands was only going to make those thoughts more prominent, it seemed.

When he had learned of her murder that fateful Saturday night in October, he felt nothing. It had been an awful, profound nothing—the sort of nothing that has the power to crush a person, make it impossible to think. He was twenty-one years old and foolish and irrevocably brokenhearted. It was as though the world had suddenly come to an abrupt, neat end. For a very long time he felt as though it had never stopped ending.

He had not dreamt of Lily Potter since he had looked into her son's eyes and by extension her own the night he thought would be his last in the Shrieking Shack. He thought back to that night, trying in vain to pull his last encounter with the boy to the front of his mind, but it would not gain clarity. Severus could still feel the holes from where had laid himself bare, offering up the more private parts of his past to see that the job was finished once and for all. Turns out it had been enough to save his life, too, but that was beside the point.

The job had been finished, and Severus had kept his part of Dumbledore's plan to keep Lily Potter's son alive, but to this day he still felt very little, if any, reconciliation for it. He may not have been the one to cast the curse as he had in his new dream, but he had had a firm yet ignorant hand in it all the same. Severus had come to terms with the fact a long time ago that he would carry the burden of her murder on his shoulders, because that was, in his mind, the very least he deserved in the grand scheme of things. Severus stood, having no real desire to eat any longer, and dumped his partially-eaten breakfast in the bin. He put the saucer in the sink, along with the half-full pot of tea, wondering why he did this sort of thing to himself.

Severus retreated to the sitting room with a dull ache in his head, no doubt a result of too little sleep. The fire had almost smoldered itself out, but he did not trouble himself over it—the deepening chill about the house made him feel awake. Adelaide's portrait was still where he had left it, sitting on the arm of his chair, placid and empty, and he picked it up when he sat down.

He wondered what Adelaide Harlowe did with her mornings and her afternoons before she gave him her evenings freely. There were times he considered asking her those questions, figuring out exactly how she came to be where she was, but then Severus would catch himself and turn his thoughts elsewhere. He could say he did not care all he liked, but deep down she intrigued him. He turned the Silhouette portrait over in his hands to examine the ornate black frame. It really was an impressive frame as far as frames went...

"Don't be a fool," Severus told himself lamely. Then he thought:  _You don't need this._

But, had Severus been honest with himself, he would have seen it as the farce that it was, a lie he had told himself so much he had started to believe in it. He had never before minded being alone, but that was the funny thing about leading a life of duplicity. Being alone simplified things, made them easier to manage. Above all else, the solitude kept him alive until he had finished what he had set out to do. Days like today, though—and they had been so rare in recent months, what with his recovery and rehabilitation, that he had almost forgotten what they felt like—the loneliness carved away at him the way the elements might erode stone.

For reasons he would not be able to explain later, Severus found himself picturing Adelaide's face; her deep-set eyes that watched him carefully, and her rounded lips, that when she smiled at him hinted at the slight gap between her front two teeth. The double spiral on his left wrist began to throb and sear before it faded into an uncomfortable stinging sensation _._

Severus winced _. Did she feel that every time_?

Instead of staring at his own reflection, Severus saw the ceiling of an unfamiliar room slowly come into focus. Clear fairy lights hung in a limp cluster in a corner, casting the image in a golden hue. It was dim, but he could still see the webbing of cracks in the plaster where the ceiling met the wall.

"Miss Harlowe?" he said somewhat hesitantly at first, then again, louder. Out of frame, Severus heard the sound of shuffling, then what he believed to be bare feet treading quickly upon a wooden floor. There was distortion in the image, as though the room had spun suddenly on an axis, and Adelaide Harlowe came into view.

"Mister Snape?" Adelaide ran a hand through her bedraggled black hair. Severus felt a small pang of foolishness and guilt. He had woken her, apparently. "What's wrong?"

He wondered that exact thing himself. Now that he had Adelaide back in her frame, Severus had absolutely no idea what to do with her. He rubbed at his head pensively. His mouth was completely dry when he said, "Forgive me for interrupting your lie in." His tone was none too pleasant, and speaking to her have did not have the cathartic feeling he believed it would. On the contrary he felt like an imbecile. "But I need to ask you something."

"Of course," Adelaide said. His less than cheerful greeting did not appear to faze her in the slightest. "Anything."

"How do you take your tea?"

"My tea?" Adelaide made a face, as if she were trying to puzzle through whether he was serious or not.

_Dear God_ , Severus thought. The regret for having picked up the frame in the first place was immediate, but there was not a thing he could do about it now that would not render him an even bigger fool. His mind began racing, searching for some sequence of words that would ease the awkwardness he had created. "Yes, I…I," he stammered uncharacteristically before finally settling on: "I've grown tired of taking it the same way." Severus fought back a cringe, forcing his face to take on a rather detached expression.  _Great work, you blithering dolt_ , he chastised himself.  _Fantastic_   _excuse._

But instead of the snickering he had expected, Severus, much to his surprise, saw Adelaide's lips begin to curl into a smile. "I understand," she said gently. "It does one good to add a little variety every so often, even in something as minute as one's tea. I take mine with honey and a dash of milk. You should try it."

Severus sat silently for a second before mindlessly repeating the word, "honey."

"Yes," she replied, now seeming downright gleeful to be able to help him, if only in a small way. "I tried it once at a friend's suggestion," she managed, through a yawn. "Haven't gone back to sugar since."

Severus nodded with lame relief, but remained silent.

"How do you take your tea?" Adelaide added, seeming to sense the tension though radiating off him.

"Sugar and lemon," Severus lied.

Admitting that they shared similar tastes in tea preparation felt like confiding something much too personal, like a secret that weighed on him heavily which he could never bring himself to share. As she smiled at him again, Severus suddenly remembered why the combination had come to him so easily, the sweet aroma of citrus and summer that followed Lily Potter around like a prim shadow. Thank God the black-haired girl hovering in front of him could not see inside his head.

Severus consciously pushed away those memories, feeling worse for having dragged them from the place they had lain dormant all those years. It was funny, in a sad, perverse sort of way, the way he could sometimes reflect on the simple things that stood the test of time regarding their friendship, regarding her. He should have known it was doomed from the start.  _Toxic_  was the word that came almost immediately to mind. Most relationships were. You could be fast childhood friends one day, and estranged acquaintances the next. And then there are just memories that, with age, start to dissolve into one another until all that is left is a blurred, tangled jumble of what was.

"Does that hurt?"Adelaide said abruptly. "Your hands. They look ghastly."

Severus jerked back, and suddenly realised that, without meaning to, he had flashed the end result of his early-morning fit when he rubbed absentmindedly at the sides of his head. The bruising looked worse than it was against his complexion. The purplish hue that tinged the fleshy area between his wrist and little finger on both hands was shining brightly for his Silhouette to see, illuminating the degree to which he had relapsed during the night like an obscene beacon. He fought the urge to snap at her for noticing.

"No idea," Severus said. He pulled his sleeves over the offending area. Feigning a sudden interest in a hard callous on his finger he said nothing else on the subject.

"That wasn't there yesterday," said Adelaide. It was not necessarily a question the way she phrased it. Severus glanced up at her face, noticing the tiredness in her eyes and sleepy demeanor had been replaced officious alertness. "You didn't take a fall did you?"

Severus wondered if he truly appeared that delicate. "Well done, you," he said, giving her a deep frown. "That's precisely what happened."

Adelaide shot him a look of unmistakable annoyance, which caused the hint of a smile to tug at the corner of his lips. When it became clear that she did not find this exchange a laughing matter, and even more clear that she was not about to let the subject go, Severus relented. "Fine. I may have lost my temper this morning, and I may have taken it out on my floorboards."

"What made you so angry that you tried to beat up your floor?"

There had once a time in his life where Severus's first instinct would have been to tell the young woman to mind her own business, but now he discovered that that notion vanished surprisingly quickly when he looked at the portrait and saw the genuine concern on her face. He sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose; a lame attempt to buy himself some time to think the situation through. Did he really want to do this? Did he really want to open that door and allow her to dissect what lay behind it?

Severus felt a very unfamiliar and almost undeniable urge to tell her everything that had led up to the bruises that had captured her attention. It would have been so very easy to throw caution to the wind and blurt out every last detail—the loneliness, the dream of Lily Potter, the crushing responsibility he felt for the death of the only person he had ever truly cared about – everything…

"My thoughts…the past," he said instead, with an impassive air. "And they made me angry. It was foolish."  _That was sufficiently vague_ , he thought to himself.  _Not patently absurd, though still not the best._ He hoped it was forthcoming enough to placate his Silhouette's curiosity.

Adelaide's expression relaxed into a fleeting smile and she seemed to give his response serious consideration before speaking. "You shouldn't dwell on things that you can't control," she said. Her tone reminded him of Augusta's—firm but sympathetic in its own right. "Nothing good can ever come from being a prisoner of your past, Mister Snape."

"Yes, Miss Harlowe, I'll keep that in mind," he said, still with a hint of sarcasm.

She smiled outright at that. "I don't doubt it, Mister Snape. You always take my advice to heart."

A silence fell over them and Severus decided not to break it, his mind focused on the subtle trace of truth hidden within her attempt of wit. Though he would be loath to ever admit it aloud, Adelaide Harlowe, even with her tendency to offer unsolicited advice and the seemingly innate ability to make him uncomfortable in his own skin, was capable of moments of surprising insight. How she did it remained a mystery, but something told Severus it was purely coincidental considering she never appeared to pick up on the effect she had on him.

He could only hope she remained ignorant of those times she picked through the cracks in the walls—surviving them coming down seemed like a colossal undertaking he was not sure he could handle just yet, or possibly ever.

The clock on the mantel began to chime the first of seven hushed tolls, laying the previous pre-dawn hour to rest. Severus sat up in his chair and stretched. In her frame Adelaide yawned, the early morning catching up with her once again.

"Stop…" he said, only to have the rest of the words cut short. The contagious quality was automatic, and Severus found he could not help himself. When he gained control of his mouth he frowned at her. "Now look what you've started."

"Sorry. Can't help it," laughed Adelaide. In the frame he could see that she had wrapped the blankets around her shoulders, and settled herself firmly in the center of her bed. He had half a mind to suggest that they continue their conversation later that evening, instead of behaving like pajama-clad teenagers at a slumber party, but she went on talking.

"I had a late night last night. I think I finally turned out the lights at half past three…" The sound of a blaring alarm cut her off. Adelaide glanced off to the side at what he suspected was her clock. She disappeared out of focus and came back seconds later with the silenced alarm clock in her hands. "It happens more than I'd like admit, but you'd think I'd learn considering seven comes entirely too early."

Severus wondered what kept her awake at night, what hidden secrets accosted or graced her dreams when she closed her eyes. "Insomnia doesn't discriminate."

"I was reading, actually." Adelaide fiddled with the black clock in her lap, winding the alarm dial back around to set it again. "It's very easy for me to slip between the pages and lose all track of time. When I was younger, I'd barely look up from the words often enough to notice much of anything else."

That was something Severus found he could relate to, though he did not tell her so. During his youth, his mother's old school books had become his refuge. At Hogwarts, he had gravitated toward the library like a moth to flame. There was something about opening an long-unread book, smelling the ink and feeling the cracked spines and brittle pages of a well-used book that took him out of a world he hated and centered him in one he could tolerate. And of course there was the knowledge he gained through the years, and with it, the power, but that was something else entirely…

"I've not had much time for reading lately," she went on, as somewhat of an afterthought. When she started talking, it was like turning on the sink tap—the words came at a slow, relentless pace seemingly untroubled and without end. "Not since I met you, anyway."

"Such a travesty," he said. Severus waited, studying her face with a single finger resting against his lips as he did so. He noticed a flush had crept into her face first, and knew was to follow.  _So easy to goad._

"I didn't mean it like that," she blurted quickly. "Really, I only meant—"

"That having to look after a curmudgeonly shut-in has substantially interfered with your ability to enjoy yourself?" Severus interrupted, and saw that the young woman was becoming increasingly flustered with the direction the conversation was heading.

So easy, indeed. She nearly took the fun out of it all.

"No, Mister Snape, I wasn't complaining. I didn't mean to—"

"I know what you meant," Severus finished for her. He could tell that she was on the verge of becoming genuinely upset and was compelled to end the charade of hurt feelings he had constructed. "There's no need to apologize, Miss Harlowe. When you've been called the things that I have over the years, you develop a rather thick skin."

"Just the same," she said with a touch of pink still in her cheeks. "I didn't mean to offend you. I wouldn't have signed up for the Silhouette program if I didn't want to devote the time necessary to it."

"I have no doubt of the purity of your intentions," Severus assured her. Then he smirked, quite broadly, and realised that was the first time since returning home that he had experienced anything close to an honest smile.

"I can never tell when you're being serious," Adelaide told him, shaking her head. With a sharp breath, she looked him in the eyes as though trying to detect what was going on inside his thoughts. "I think you pretend to be offended for the fun of it, which is terribly rude thing to do, by the way." She folded her arms as significantly as Severus imagined she could, and frowned at him.

"I am a forthright man, Miss Harlowe," Severus answered, circling around her accusation with deft precision. "Sometimes forthright to a fault, but I've found being blunt in most situations makes life easier for everyone, rudeness aside."

Adelaide appeared to consider this, then she said with a wry smile: "Tell me then, if you are as forthright as you claim, why did you really activate your portrait this morning?"

Severus opened his mouth, but no words emerged. His mind raced to find some sort of response with which to fill the silence before things became excruciatingly awkward. Finding nothing, he decided his best option was to double down on the pretense he had originally put forward. "As I said, Miss Harlowe, I wanted to know how you take your tea."

"Mister Snape," she said in a tone of unmasked skepticism, "I admittedly don't know you that well, but one thing I can say with a great deal of confidence is that you aren't one to make idle small talk. So, what was the real reason?"

"You're looking for some ulterior motive that I assure you doesn't exist, Miss Harlowe." Severus recognized he had said this with the tone of someone running out excuses, so he elaborated. "I was simply looking to remove a bit of monotony from my routine and hoped you might be able to provide it."

"So you went with tea? Really?"

"Yes, I went with tea," he snapped, feeling more and more like a fool.

"But why tea?" Adelaide pressed. "You could have lead with any number of things; what sort of books do you read…do you like your cottage pie with beef or lamb?" She stopped talking and was glowering at him with the expectation of a response. "Well?"

"I picked the sodding tea because I needed to hear someone else's voice, besides the one in my head always reminding me of my mistakes!" Severus stopped talking at once, regretting the hateful, telling rush of words and the prying girl in her frame for putting him in the situation to begin with. Adelaide, at least, had the decency to look marginally bewildered by his response.

"Are you satisfied now?" Severus demanded. There was a deliberate sneer in the question. He wanted very much for a hole to appear beneath his chair and swallow him up, though he refused to allow his demeanor to express any notion of that.

"Yes," Adelaide said carefully. "And you should be too."

Severus released a deeply scathing sound. "And why's that?"

"You can't tell me that you don't feel even slightly better for having admitted that aloud," she said. "You don't ever have to hide behind an excuse to talk to me. No matter how ridiculous you think you'll be, and believe me when I say you will never ever be seen as ridiculous in my eyes, you may talk to me when the need strikes you." Adelaide extended a hand as if she was trying to reach out and touch him, and the image in Severus's frame juddered before finally becoming still again. She was holding it now, he realised, the frame or mirror or whatever it was that displayed him when they met. "You can trust me, Mister Snape."

When he remained silent, jaw clenched and stoic, Adelaide went on:

"I get it, I do. You didn't want me in your life and made it a point to tell me so the moment you met me, but I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere. Deciding whether or not to trust a person isn't easy, and I know I'm asking a lot of you, but surely even someone as cynical as you can see the reason why."

Severus looked away, unable to meet her eyes. He did know why.

"I may not know you as a close friend would, and we may never reach the point where you can confide in me the things that trouble you above everything else, but I do know that you deserve a chance to be happy," she said, making good use of his sudden lapse of voice. Had he been looking at her, he would have seen the pleading smile she gave him, the earnestness with which she looked at him, but he went on staring at the wall as though it contained some hidden truth.

"Look at me, Severus," she said after a moment. The sound of his given name being used so freely got his attention and he did look at her. "It's entirely up to you, and you should never do anything you—"

"Stop talking," Severus interrupted. "You should know very well that I'm not going to do anything I do not wish to do. I called upon you today because I wanted someone to talk to, I admit that. And, yes, I know that you are available to talk whenever I wish. I understand the details of our arrangement quite well, and—" Severus took a deep breath. The next words that he spoke sounded so foreign leaving his lips that he scarcely believed they were his own. "And I do trust you, Miss Harlowe. At the end of the day, however, I am who I am, and who I am is an extremely private person. That fact has nothing to do with trust—" Severus was stopped short by a series of three sharp knocks on his front door.

"What in God's name?" Severus wondered aloud. He glanced quickly at the clock sitting atop the mantel and it read a few minutes shy of eight. "I have to go. We'll finish this conversation later."

"Of course," Adelaide replied cordially. "Same time as usual?"

"I suppose," he said, his attention firmly elsewhere.

She flashed him a brief smile. "If you need anything thing else before then, you know where to find me.

Severus sighed. "Yes, I know, Miss Harlowe."

He did not wait to hear what she was about to say in response to that. Severus shut off the Portrait, stuffed it between the cushions of his chair and walked toward the door from which three more knocks, louder this time, had just emanated. Becoming increasingly annoyed, he reached the door and, against his better judgment, opened it. He had no idea who he had expected it to be, but he was especially surprised to see his former colleague and current Headmistress of Hogwarts, Minerva McGonagall to appear in his doorway.

"Severus," she said politely. She looked him over from top to bottom, a slight smile curling her lips when her eyes came to his toes. "It's good to see you."

"Minerva," he replied with a curt nod. He had no idea what the reason for her visit might be, but he was sure that whatever it was, he wanted no part of it.

"Well," she said sharply, "Are you going to stand their gawking all day or are you going to invite me in? It's cold out here."

Severus stepped back, the snow and icy wind blowing in around his ankles and up the legs of sleeping trousers. "If you insist."

"I hope you haven't eaten yet." Minerva said as she swept past him. Severus watched her as she took off her gloves, stashed them in a pocket, then looked about the room intently. "I've arranged for us to talk over breakfast, if that is something you'd be interested in."

"If it's hidden up your robes, I'm afraid I'd rather not," Severus said dryly, which earned him a firm glare.

"Don't be ridiculous," Minerva snapped. She spun around and headed for his kitchen without another word.

"By all means," Severus mumbled when she was out of earshot. "Make yourself at home."

In the kitchen Minerva had busied herself with finding cups and setting out the plates and utensils. "Winky and Izzy will be here shortly," she said to him when he came into view. "If I remember correctly, you take your eggs scrambled with cheese and buttered toast."

"What are you doing, Minerva?" Severus stood in the doorway with his arms folded across his chest.

"I'm setting the table, naturally." Minerva pointed her wand at the window and the curtains fluttered back to reveal the snowy fenced-in garden at the back of the house. Sunlight poured into the space, and she smiled at him benevolently. "Unless, of course, you'd rather eat out of the serving dishes like an uncultured baboon."

"Yes, I can see that, thank you," Severus groused. "What I'd like to know is why."

"I am willing to bet my wand that you haven't had a decent meal since you left Hogwarts." Minerva sat down at the table, placed one of the wrinkled, off-white napkins (she had found from God only knew where) in her lap, and gestured for him to do the same. "I also know your cooking is a step shy from Hagrid's if it doesn't involve beans and tea and toast."

Severus made a face, an impending barb taking shape on the tip of his tongue, but a loud popping noise issued from the sitting room before he could make proper use of the insult. Two House Elves dressed in tea towels featuring the Hogwarts crest came bounding down the hall, balancing a wide assortment of trays and dishes in their spindly arms. Severus flattened himself against the wall to keep from being knocked in the knees as they passed.

"On time as always, Izzy." Minerva was out of her seat, removing a small tray of what appeared to be fried sausages from atop the small mountain of food the Elf carried. "You and Winky may leave the food and return to Hogwarts. Severus and I are fully capable of serving ourselves."

"If the Headmistress insists," said the Elf. He turned once he had deposited the food safely on the table, blue eyes bulging like tennis balls, and bowed to Severus. "Professor Snape, sir. Izzy prepared Professor's favourite fried tomatoes."

Severus sighed, realising that there was no chance of avoiding the situation now. "Thank you, though it was terribly impolite for Minerva to insist you do so."

"Headmistress McGonagall didn't insist, sir," said Izzy, sounding mildly affronted. "She asked for a favour for a friend, and Izzy and Winky were happy help. Wasn't that so, Winky?"

"It was so." Winky, the other Elf, whose tea towel appeared two sizes too big, hiccoughed. "Any friend to the Headmistress is a friend to Winky, and Winky was glad to help."

Minerva cleared her throat, smiling at both the Elves. "Off you go, now. Severus and I have much to discuss. " The Elves obliged, giving one final curtsy to Severus, and with a single snap of their fingers, disappeared. Minerva took her seat and motioned for Severus to take the one across from her. "Do join me, Severus. It would be a shame not to eat when those two went to such great lengths to prepare you such a fine meal."

Severus knew that the quickest way to get McGonagall out of his house was to humour her request, so he took his seat on the opposite side of the table. Besides, she was not wrong about the quality of his diet recently, and the fried tomatoes really were his favourite. He picked up his fork and moved some of the tomatoes and eggs from their dishes onto his empty plate.

"You look good, Severus," said Minerva. She helped herself to some of the scrambled eggs steaming from the bowl. "How are you feeling?"

"As well as can be expected, I suppose," he said. "Some days fair better than others, but I'm intact, so that has to count for something."

"I read of your release in the  _Prophet_ ," the Headmistress offered. "Almost a year at St. Mungo's—however did you stand it?"

Severus regarded her for a moment, then wiped his mouth on his napkin before he spoke. "I was unconscious for a lot of it. Seventeen weeks, they said."

"That long, really?" Minerva shook her head, as is the tradition with good-natured old ladies when they heard something unfortunate. Then, "They were good to you?"

A sneer crept across his face. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"Yes, I suppose you are, ornery disposition and all."

Severus was becoming increasingly annoyed by her earnestness. He shoved another forkful of food in his mouth and chewed to keep from telling her exactly how irritated he was.

"Things are slowly returning to normal at Hogwarts," she said conversationally, as if Severus cared about the goings on at the school at all. "The castle has nearly rebuilt itself, though from time to time a plume of smoke can be seen hovering outside the left seventh floor corridor." She sighed, then said, "No one seems to know why; we've checked it multiple times and never find anything."

"Odd," Severus said, making a great effort to sound as unconcerned as possible.

"Enrollment is up also," the Headmistress went on. "And so far the House unity is holding—"

"My God, Minerva!" Severus was looking at her the way he might look at something uncomfortably lewd. "For my sanity's sake, get on with it. Why are you really here?"

Her lips set into a thin line, and she set her fork down neatly beside her plate. "I was hoping we could chat before we got down to business, but since you insist." She took a deep, shuddering breath and said, "To put it rather bluntly, I didn't stop by here today just to see how you were holding up. I'm also came to ask you for a favour. It's perfectly understandable if you'd prefer not to—"

"I prefer not to," Severus cut in, giving her a look that should have turned her to ice.  _How dare she!_  he thought, remembering with terrible clarity the last time they had spoken to each other. Amusingly enough it was the same night she had not only tried to burn him alive, but gore him to death as well. The scar was still visible from where one of her charmed and absurdly sharp daggers had nicked the outside of his right thigh.

"You don't even know—"

"Doesn't matter. The answer is still no."

"Severus—"

"Who do you think you are?" Severus demanded. The fork in his hand hit the table with a clatter. "You show up unannounced with this ridiculous pretense of checking on my wellbeing, feeding me even, only to spin it into something that benefits you. You could put Albus to shame, Minerva, and that is saying something."

Minerva McGonagall lapsed into a stunned silence, simply stared at him with her mouth hung ajar. Severus was determined to drag this conversation out as long as he had to, to the bitter, awful end if it came to that. He took a long sip from his teacup and waited, refusing to give in until his former colleague made him or gave up and left. Was it so much to ask for the latter?

Severus's casual handling of the conversation appeared to have struck a nerve with the Headmistress. "You don't think I regret all of it?" she said. It was impossible to miss the quiver in her voice.

Minerva cleared her throat, and tried to flatten the invisible wrinkles in her robes before trying again, the second time more like herself: "Every day, what happened at the castle, what happened to you, plays through my mind. I honestly had no idea the depths to which your involvement ran on our side of things. I had no idea, Severus. None. And nothing I can ever say to you will make it right, and I would be a fool to think otherwise."

"You tried to set me on fire," Severus deadpanned.

"What was I supposed to do? Hand over Potter without a fuss? You and I were not exactly on the best of terms, Severus." Minerva paused, closed her eyes as if to marshal the right words into place, then said, "Had I only known the circumstances—"

"But you didn't," Severus interrupted. His hand went to his throat, rubbing absently at the scar tissue hidden away under his shirt. He caught himself before he pulled his collar aside to show her exactly what the circumstances had cost. "Perhaps if I had actually been able to speak to the boy that regrettable meeting with the Dark Lord might not have taken place."

This was met by more silence. Minerva sat her napkin on the table and gave a shaky sigh, in what Severus recognised as a last-ditch attempt to try to calm herself. In that same moment, and very much in spite of himself, Severus also knew he had crossed the line with that remark. He had been a man marked for the grave the moment he had sent Albus Dumbledore to his. It was a shame it had taken him almost a year after the fact to realise that unfortunate truth.

"I should've known better," the Headmistress said at last. She stood regarded him with a brief look of sadness, and started to walk away. "Forgive me for intruding, Severus."

"I want to hate you, you know." Severus stretched in his chair, his long legs taking up more space than was reasonable in the modest kitchen. "When I was at St. Mungo's, after I woke up and I spent weeks upon weeks alone, I tried as hard as I could."

Minerva turned to face him. "What an awful thing to say, Severus Snape. What have I ever done to deserve that?" Severus's mouth opened to utter a response, but she cut him off before he could. "Other than try to set you on fire," she said pointedly.

Severus let out an involuntary chuckle. "I want to hate you because seeing you brings up every horrible thing I'd like to forget. I see you and I think of all the lies I had to tell, all the betrayals I had to act out. I look at you and I see what it has cost me."

"Severus, I—"

He held up and hand and she stalled. "Let me finish while I have the mind to say it. I want to hate you, but I can't bring myself to, because I realise that you were just another pawn in this fucked game, just like I was. But, really, you didn't deserve it. I signed up for it to atone for my past mistakes, but you were conscripted. I realise that vital information was withheld from you, both by myself and by others, and that that was unfair to you."

"I could have helped you." Minerva took a step closer to him, her expression one of deep regret. "I would have gladly helped you."

"And it could have killed you in the process." Severus looked out toward the garden, watching the white, blossom-sized flakes fall steadily toward the ground. The snow was beginning to drift. "I would not have been able to stand that on my conscience, especially if it was something I could prevent."

There was a claustrophobic silence, as if all the air had been sucked out of the room, then Minerva said, "What a spectacular reunion this has been."

Severus glanced up at her, feeling an odd sense of relief. "The food wasn't terrible. That has to count for something."

"I suppose that's fair," she replied and half-smiled at him. "As soon as I return to the castle, I'll send Izzy back to fetch the mess."

"That's it, then? You're not going to tell me what you wanted me to do?" Severus stared at her, arms resting behind his head. "Your blatant lack of bravado is quite the disgrace to your House, Headmistress."

"After that I would not have thought you'd be willing to still hear it."

"Don't mistake my curiosity for enthusiasm," he told her quite plainly. "And know before you begin that I'm making no promises that I'll agree to help you."

Minerva scowled as she took the seat across from him again. "Naturally."

Severus poured himself a fresh cup of tea, complete with a splash of milk and a spoonful of honey, and waited. "Whenever you're ready."

"As I mentioned before you interrupted me, enrollment has increased since Voldemort was defeated. Many Muggle-born and Half-blood students that were forced to go into hiding during their seventh year have returned to finish their required course work. This means there is an influx of students completing N.E.W.T level written and practical examinations." She paused to pour tea for herself. "My faculty has taken on as many students as they can handle within their subjects, but there is still a handful of students without a professor to oversee their progress."

Severus gave her a puzzled look. "Surely you aren't trying to outsource?"

The sugar spoon in her hand banged loudly against the white cup. "Of course not! I have picked up the remaining students to advise, which brings me to why I came here. The students that will be sitting for Charms and Transfiguration I can handle, and that takes care of all of them but the one who is sitting for Potions. This particular student has decided to go a rather different route with her practical exam, and has decided to venture into uncharted territory by trying to develop something new entirely."

Severus scoffed. "Are they trying to fail on purpose? Who on earth would decide that is a good idea, given the time frame?"

"Hermione Granger."

As soon as Minerva said her name, all of the puzzle pieces fit neatly together—his running into her at Culpepper's, the overheard conversation with the clerk, the unsolicited advice and the book he had sent her… _Why! Why did I do that?_

"I have been with her from the start," the Headmistress said. "And I have helped her as much as I can within my knowledge of what she's trying to achieve, but I'm reaching my limits, Severus. I need someone to help me fill in the gaps so I can help her with revisions and offer suggestions when the time comes."

"Why can't Slughorn assist you?"

"Believe me, I have thought about it, but he is already advising ten other N.E.W.T-level potions students in their practicum, so asking him to take basically take on another charge wouldn't benefit any of them. And Hermione Granger is not what you'd call a traditional student, so I can't very well insist that a staff member, who is already stretched thin with obligations, take on another because I no longer have the capacity to advise her."

Severus frowned. That had been the second time he had heard mention of Hermione Granger's so-called nontraditional status. It irritated him that he still had no idea what that truly meant. "Is she a student or not?" he asked before he could control himself.

Minerva took another sip from the tea cup. "Yes and no. Miss Granger does not live on the grounds, nor does she have the normal class load of a usual Seventh year student. She is living in a small flat above Tomes and Scrolls. You know it—the bookshop in Hogsmeade. I always suspected she would return in full fashion," she added as somewhat of an afterthought. "But she didn't. You see, the Ministry awarded her N.E.W.T levels in three of the four core disciplines for her involvement in the war."

"How in seven hells did Shacklebolt manage that?"

Minerva shrugged, though Severus suspected she knew more than she was hinting at. "It was all very clandestine. Turns out our new minister cut some corners with the Examination Authority with regards to Mister Potter and his friends. As you can probably imagine, Potter and Weasley accepted with very little fuss. Miss Granger on the other hand…let's just say old habits die hard."

_Of course they do_ , Severus thought.

"My usefulness has run its course unless Miss Granger has discovered a way to transfigure her project into something successful. I need your help because you are the best I know when it comes to the inventive aspects of potion making."

"So what do you need me to do exactly?" Severus asked, certain he was not going to like the response he received.

"I would like for you to take a look at this as a start." Minerva pulled a folded slip of parchment from a pocket in her robes, and held it out between them. Severus eyed it with contempt, as if it contained something sinister, then finally snatched it out of her hand when she shook it at him. "She gave this to me yesterday morning during our advisory meeting," she said. A look of determined self-satisfaction passed over her face, and stayed there much to Severus's disappointment. Then she said, "Miss Granger mentioned something about a book you had sent her a few days ago that helped her with a few of her smaller revisions."

The parchment was covered in willowy script, with blobs of ink dotting here and there where an apparent mistake had been scribbled out. The first impression he got from the work was that it felt rushed, very unlike the work she completed the last year he had her as a student.

"At a glance, some of the components are questionable, and the spell work and preparation..." Severus trailed off. His eyes swept across the page. "The spell work and preparation look all wrong, much too basic for what she's trying to accomplish here."

Minerva made a face. "Wrong? What do you mean wrong?"

"Wrong. Incorrect. Insufficient. How else can it be put?" Severus sat the parchment on the table in front of him. "I can't be certain without looking at the work in greater depth, but what she has there will never work as she means for it to. It has qualities of a restorative draught, which, as you know, work to lessen effects over time. Those draughts are time-released and are typically given in several doses within a specific window. Anything containing Alihotsy must be dealt with immediately, given its rather strenuous effect."

"How can you tell that?" Minerva asked

"This is a concern, for one," Severus said, and pointed to a word in the center of the sheet. "Bishop's Lace, especially the pulverized umbels she's using here, is known for its extended release properties. That's the only reason it's ever used, and it is used predominantly in restorative draughts."

Minerva McGonagall looked immensely troubled. She picked up the parchment, adjusted her glasses so they sat perilously on the end of her nose, and studied the words. "I should have caught that."

"Yes," Severus agreed. "You should have."

Minerva was quiet for some time, her gaze darting here and there on the parchment. "What do you suggest I do?"

He shrugged. "The sensible thing for you to do is broaden your understanding of antidotes and how they work. Then you need to tell Miss Granger to start over."

"But she has less than four months!" Minerva said. Her expression was as if he had slapped her across the face. "That is preposterous." She shook her head furiously. "No, I can't do that. It will wreck any chance she has of completing anything at all."

Severus, who remained unperturbed at her sudden shock, took a drink of tea. "Other than finding someone who knows what they're doing and can properly instruct her away from the pitfalls, you don't much of a choice."

"Horace will have my head," said Minerva, though Severus suspected she was talking more to herself than him.

"Don't be ridiculous, Minerva," he chided. "Horace will gripe to your face, but behind closed doors he'll be delighted to have her as one of his shining totems, complete with the photograph to prove it was all true."

"Which is precisely what I'm afraid of," snapped Minerva. Severus had to admit that comment came as a bit of a surprise. "Hermione Granger deserves a great deal more than her picture on the mantel. Horace is fully competent, don't get me wrong, but she does not need to be coddled because of her talent."

Severus scoffed. "And refusing to tell her to start over isn't coddling her?"

"No, it isn't," the Headmistress said firmly. "The blame lies with me entirely that she is even in this situation, because I haven't the sense in my head to detect mistakes when she makes them. I will not punish her for my lapse." She looked at him, almost in the same beseeching way Albus Dumbledore had managed to perfect, and sighed. "Do I have to admit flat-out that I am floundering, because if that is what it takes then I will gladly confess my ineptitude without a single excuse."

"Would it possible to have that writing?" Severus said.

Minerva glared at him over her glasses. "Will you help me or not?"

A week ago, he would have dismissed the idea as complete and utter nonsense, but Severus found himself actually giving the request serious consideration, much to his own surprise. The fact that the student involved was Hermione Granger, someone Severus had never had a great relationship with to say the least, did give him some pause. However, for all the things about her that annoyed him, she was quite bright, as evidenced by the project she had chosen to take on. There was definitely a need for a new antidote, and her idea to use Alihotsy was especially keen. And Minerva was right about Slughorn, too. He was a perfectly capable potioneer, but his interest in the project would have more to do with adding another accomplished witch to his collection, rather than on the actual advancement in the field that the project would represent. Severus massaged his temple, trying to balance the welcome distraction the project may offer—something to fill his glaringly empty days as well as shift his focus from his past demons that insisted on haunting him day in and day out –with the aggravation that his involvement was also likely to bring, aggravation that he could do without…

"No," Severus said, as simply as if he were discussing the weather with a random stranger. "I won't."

She opened her mouth, as if to protest, but what Severus said next stopped any flow of words. "I won't help you, because there's no need for you to be involved. You have enough on your plate, Minerva, without playing middleman between Miss Granger and myself. If I'm to be involved, I may as well do it directly." Severus sighed. "Of course, that is contingent on you agreeing to give me access to the castle."

"Are you certain this is something you wish to do?" When he offered her a curt nod, a look of surprised satisfaction appeared on Minerva's face. "Very well. You will have all the access you require, Severus, of course. Though she would never say it to my face, Miss Granger will be delighted that you're assisting her instead of me, all the good I've done her so far. She has always spoken rather highly of you—still does actually."

Severus found that hard to believe, but let it slide.

"Thank you, Severus. Truly. You may have saved her chances after all."

"Perhaps," he said. "Provided she prepared to work to see that it happens."

"I haven't any doubt of that," Minerva insisted. She glanced above his head at the simple clock hanging on the wall. "I'm to meet with her today at ten to discuss revisions. Can I tell her to expect you Monday morning, or do you need more time?"

"Monday will be sufficient," said Severus. "It isn't like I have much else to occupy my time, what with no bidding to do these days."

"Hogwarts looks forward to your arrival. You've been gone far too long, you know." She stood, taking one last inventory of the remnants of their meal, then added, "I'll send Izzy straight back to collect the breakfast dishes."

Without another word, Minerva was gone, having Disapparated where she stood, and there sitting at his kitchen table still in his pajamas, Severus wondered what fresh hell he had managed to get himself into this time.

* * *

Author's Notes:

It has been a while, huh? I have been working on this chapter for the last three months now, and it feels good to finally be able to post it for people to read. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed putting to paper, so to speak. This story is written for Thorned Huntress, who has been a solid trooper and supporter while I wade through my thoughts to get the words where they need to be. As always, reviews are welcomed and greatly appreciated.

Have a very Merry Christmas and New Year. Next chapter January 2016!

-Lara


	8. Chapter VII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severus Snape has been granted release from St. Mungo's following a lengthy recovery, but it is with one simple condition.

  **All Characters are property of J.K Rowling and the Harry Potter Universe. Thankfully, she allows me to borrow them for a bit of fun.**

* * *

**Silhouette**

**Chapter VII**

Severus Snape stared at his reflection in the full-length looking glass leaning against his bedroom wall. Freshly showered and shaved, he stood before the silver surface of the framed mirror while his damp hair dripped water down his back and onto the floor, his eyes taking inventory of every single flaw. The hot water had tinged his skin a false youthful pinkish hue, temporarily hiding the scars that pockmarked his neck and chest, and for a moment Severus almost looked like a normal human being.

Or at least like a former version of himself—if he squinted.

The person staring back at him was a long-lost persona of sorts that his subconscious hardly ever allowed to rise from the pit to which it had been banished years ago. Considerably thinner now, and with neck and back pain that treaded the knife's edge of becoming chronic, Severus knew he was hardly the person he used to be both in a physical and mental sense, but he still, on occasion, found himself imagining what it might have been like had events played out differently.

What events, he did not know specifically. There were really too many to name, but that still did not prevent his mind from meandering through places it had no real business going. Severus wondered, as he examined the new black trousers that sat loosely about his hips, if he would have resumed his duties as Head of Slytherin House and Potions Master had he somehow eluded the snake and the Dark Lord. Would the true Board of Governors, finally released from a Dark Lord-controlled Ministry, have gone a step further and reinstated him as Headmaster? Or would the Fates still have led him right where he was, damaged and with no real direction, judging his reflection and his decision to return to Hogwarts on his own accord with ill-hidden contempt?

 _Not that I would have wanted to walk back to any of it,_ he thought, and pulled a white cotton T-shirt over his head. Deep down he knew that was the truth.

The Governors could have doubled his salary, even offered him ample time to go on compensated sabbaticals, free from pubescent idiots and officious colleagues, and he still would have declined whatever position they were offering without a moment of thought. He was not suited for it - had never been suited for it, really.

And yet, despite his misgivings, there was _something_ he missed about Hogwarts, though what it was could have been anyone's guess.

Severus rubbed the bridge of his nose as he turned for the wardrobe that stood along the opposite wall. The effect of having lain awake most of the night before and waking much earlier than he would have liked made his head feel hazy. He hesitated once he reached the wardrobe, his hand sitting heavily on the latch. Severus was tired and annoyed with himself, more specifically the apprehensive knot in his stomach that was becoming harder to ignore eleven thirty and his appointment with Minerva drew nearer.

As intensely as he now wished that he had never agreed to help Minerva McGonagall, he could not come up with a way to get himself out of the situation. In the most practical of his many fantasies Hermione Granger would realise she had taken on something she had no business attempting, and his offer to assist would be forgotten just as her desire for a N.E.W.T. certification in Potions. In the same thought, in an unfortunate moment of clarity, he remembered who it was he was dealing with and the happy notion was vaporized on the spot.

 _Stop being ridiculous,_ he told himself, and opened the wardrobe door with a little more force than was strictly necessary.

The new clothing order from Twilfitt and Tatting's had been delivered the day before, along with the hefty fee for delivery and in-home alterations—a service he had previously dismissed as extravagant until he found the thought of setting foot in Diagon Alley nauseating. The fitting left him short-tempered and his Gringotts account several Galleons short, but he had managed to acquire an entirely new wardrobe that he desperately needed. The precisely-tailored shirts and jackets still bore the tags advertising the self-ironing and self-repairing qualities with which they had been bewitched. He picked an understated grey shirt with a sharp collar and simple silver cufflinks and a matching grey jacket with very pale Glen plaid detailing. He dressed in silence, refusing to look at the mirror until he had finished.

With the top button on the jacket securely fastened, Severus tore off the tags at the cuffs and stuffed them into his trouser pockets, feeling pathetically relieved to have made it that far. That sentiment soon vanished when he turned around to look at his reflection. Even with the multiple layers, he felt oddly exposed. Severus craned his neck to the left and then to the right, watching closely to see if the scar hidden beneath his collar or the brand on his wrist became visible with each movement. After several minutes of bending this way and moving that way, he left the room dissatisfied and in search of his Silhouette portrait.

The darkened portrait was on the cushion of the sofa where he had left it the previous night. He glanced at the clock above the fireplace before he picked up the frame and knew Adelaide Harlowe had started her day almost two hours prior if she kept to the scheduled she claimed.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Severus said to nobody. Then he thought of Adelaide, and the double spiral marring his left wrist began to grow hot and hurt. The portrait came to life, a dim light flooding its center and leaching slowly outward toward the edges of the frame, but the image he saw was indistinguishable, like the screen of a Muggle television that was slightly out of tune.

Severus frowned, and without a better idea gave the frame a firm shake for good measure. "Miss Harlowe?"

"Just a minute, Mister Snape," Adelaide replied, though her voice was just as distorted as the image he was seeing. Severus listened carefully, the sounds of several voices and crowd noise becoming clearer. The noise faded away just as quickly, and then, without proper warning, bright sunlight exploded throughout the portrait and the image became clear. Adelaide Harlowe's face came into focus, but her face was framed by a dark, irregular outline that reminded Severus of panels of fabric…

"Do you have me in your handbag?" Severus demanded, sounding scandalized.

"You're in a rucksack, actually," Adelaide whispered. She was trying very hard to remain inconspicuous, he realised. "And I can't very well carry a picture frame around in my hands every time I go out. That's not very subtle."

"If you're busy—"

"I'm just running a few errands," Adelaide said quickly, her eyes darting to something he could not see out of frame. The sound of an unknown voice came and went, and Adelaide said something to the nameless stranger Severus could not make out.

"Miss Harlowe, really—"

"If you keep quiet for a moment longer I can slip into the loo and we can have a proper conversation."

A public loo, especially one designated for the opposite sex, was not what Severus had in mind as a place for civilized conversation, but before he could tell her it was absolutely out of the question, Adelaide had closed the top of the bag, plunging the screen back into darkness. In hindsight, maybe asking for her assistance with something so trivial as his new wardrobe might have been a mistake.

Severus released the Silhouette portrait and it dropped a few inches before catching itself midair. It floated there, unsteadily bobbing up and down, much like a buoy riding an invisible current. He regarded the frame with a broad frown, still fidgeting with the cuffs of his shirt, and came to the conclusion that he had never met anyone as staggeringly and shamelessly nonchalant as Adelaide Harlowe.

As the thought entered his head, the glass front of the picture was flooded with light and Severus found himself face to face with Adelaide once again. "Okay, we're alone now. What can I do for you, Mister Snape?"

"You mean other than removing me from the women's loo immediately?"

"Relax, there's no one here. Besides, it's not like I could talk to you out in the crowded street," she said, unfazed by his shortness.

"It can wait until you're finished doing whatever it is you're doing," he replied dryly.

"Nonsense." Adelaide paused, then said unhelpfully, "There's no need to be so uptight about it. It's just a room like any other. Now what can I help you with?"

Had it been anyone but her he could have deployed the usual tactic of a haughty silence or a sharp demurral and the conversation would have ended right then and there, but he hesitated. Severus closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose, and resigned himself to the fact that now that he had contacted her, she was not going to let the matter go until he told her the reason. The truth came tumbling forward.

"I need an unbiased opinion," Severus muttered. "I have an appointment I must attend, and I'd rather not have this thing on my wrist visible." He waited for her to say something, but she just watched him patiently through the frame. _She's actually going to make me ask her outright…_ "The seal…can you see it?" he prompted, fiddling with the collar of his shirt. Either the fire in the hearth or his multiple layers of thick and absurdly expensive clothing had made the room stiflingly warm.

Adelaide smiled at him. "Stand up straight so I can see."

There was no sense in trying to salvage a vestige of his dignity, not now anyway. Severus did what his Silhouette had instructed, feeling profoundly idiotic as he straightened his jacket.

"You have an appointment," Adelaide said lightly. Severus watched as her gaze started at the top of his head and traveled down to the toes of his new shoes. "The fresh air will do you well, I think."

"It won't interfere with our scheduled time this evening," he said, trying to temper her curiosity and any further questioning.

"If it does, we can plan accordingly," said Adelaide. "I'm here to fit your schedule as it benefits you."

He gave her a pointed look. "Miss Harlowe, if you don't get on with it I'm going to be late."

"You look fine, Mister Snape. You don't even notice the seal."

"But do you _see_ it?" Severus insisted. He left the portrait floating in the middle of the room and went to the small, decorative rectangular mirror that hung on the wall by the staircase. "It can't be seen…not today."

"You only see what you wish to see," said Adelaide. Severus winced; he had spoken the words quietly to himself, but apparently not quietly enough it seemed. He did not have time for this, not today of all days.

He turned to look at the portrait floating a few feet behind him, pulling the cuff of his dress shirt below the sleeve of his jacket. "Stop trying to sound profound. It doesn't suit you."

"I wasn't trying to be profound. I was trying to convince you that all you see wrong with you is in your head. You take the doubt and you give it power." Adelaide gave him a level look when he scowled at her. "Do you honestly think people are going to be staring at your wrists?"

"That's not the bloody point," he snapped. "The point is that whether people choose to notice it or not, I don't wish for the thing to be seen."

"And what if it is seen, Mister Snape? What do you intend to do then?" Severus said nothing. The frame containing his Silhouette glided over to where he stood, Adelaide's eyes watching with sharp seriousness. "The way I see it, you've got two choices: you can hide yourself away from the people that are going to question you or cast judgment on you for whatever reason they see fit, and you can be miserable just like they are, or you can look them squarely in the face and let them know that their opinion has absolutely no merit, and you can be satisfied, maybe even happy if you try hard enough."

Severus shook his head and turned by to the mirror, pretending to adjust his collar so he would not have to look at her directly. Why did she always have to make a valid point to contradict every single thing he said? "You're overly naive, even for someone of your age. It's astounding, really."

"I'd rather be considered a naive twenty-year-old than a jaded cynic," said Adelaide, running a hand through her dark hair. She sighed, and looked at him in a way that put any notions of her experience or lack thereof to rest. "I'm not an idiot, I know how people are. But thankfully there was a point in my life when I stopped living to the standards others forced upon me by their own opinions. I've worked hard to prove them wrong since I was young girl and I don't intend to stop because it's difficult, and neither should you."

"Twenty." Severus drew the word out, almost as if he were hearing it for the first time. She was younger than he first believed her to be, but somehow it all made sense—life, in all of its splendid glory, had not sunk its claws deeply enough into her yet to taint her perceptions. "You're as green as grass, Miss Harlowe."

"And wise beyond my years, right?"

"If it helps you sleep at night," he said, his tone surprisingly droll despite their previous exchange. Behind him, the ancient mantel clock began to chime, ushering in the new hour. He had an hour and a half until he was due to meet Minerva and Hermione Granger.

Adelaide cleared her throat, and sensing his need to depart said, "I can't stay in here much longer, people are going to think I've fallen in. And please don't worry—you look ever the gentleman, Mister Snape. Go to your appointment, and think about what I said while you're there." She flashed him a cheerful smile. "We'll talk later, and you can tell me all about your new outlook on life."

Adelaide's face began to fade, and the image grew darker as the connection was terminated. He stepped forward quickly to catch the frame before it fell to the ground. And then Severus was by himself, staring at the now-empty space where she had been, wondering if he would ever be used to her ability to leave him thunderstruck and questioning his own motives. Very few people ever had that kind of clout, and despite the initial panic that clawed its way up his throat when Adelaide called him on his bullshit— the same as Augusta Barnes had done when he was thoroughly insolent and very ill—it did provide him with a bracing dose of vulnerability that cleared his head and forced him to see straight. Severus tossed the black frame on the cushion of the couch and retrieved his traveling cloak draped over the back of his chair. With a final fleeting glance at his double spiral on his wrist, he Disapparated with a new sense of urgency straight to Hogsmeade Village, the first step in his doubtlessly taxing pilgrimage to Hogwarts.

Several hundred miles away, Severus appeared out of thin air and ankle-deep in a snow drift that had settled over the far end of the Hogsmeade Apparition point. He steadied himself against the single, busted street lamp that marked the end of the magical zone, the fresh wave of Apparition-induced nausea ebbing gradually. When he was certain he would not be sick in the streets he set off down the narrow lane that meandered past houses with their curtains still pulled toward High Street. Severus had always had a certain fondness for Hogsmeade. There was something about the village that made it resistant to change, ever enduring. Perhaps it was the fact that it remained mostly unscathed during Voldemort's rise to power, whereas Diagon Alley was razed to near ruin.

The lane turned a corner and Severus found himself staring down the main street of the village. It was not nearly as picturesque as he remembered it from the festive winter season. The town fountain was no longer bewitched to sing carols or spout red and green streams of water in tandem with the beat. It did nothing now, frozen over. The tiny town looked drab and washed out against the grey horizon. Wilted wreathes of Christmas holly and pine boughs still hung limply from shop and residential doors. The snow drifts that had been deposited here and there were dirty from repeated thawing and refreezing and trampling, the sad remains of a bitter Scottish winter that still lingered despite the coming of spring.

Severus was relieved to see that, for now, the weather had sequestered the villagers in their homes. The very few that were out, however, were too busy melting the fresh snow that had fallen during the night from their stoops or guiding kindling for their fires from nearly-spent winter reserves to notice him fastidiously dodging the large puddles of snow melt and patches of black ice. He passed the Hogsmeade owl post office and several shops and stores. Most if not all of the businesses had not turned their closed signs to open for the day. Severus continued on his way, raising the hood of his cloak to block the chill and to shield his face should someone recognize him.

When he came to Hogs Head Inn he slowed but did not fully stop. The pub was the only establishment that never seemed to sleep. Thick grey tendrils of smoke drifted up from the chimney before being caught by the crisp mid-morning wind and carried away. The pub was the black sheep of an otherwise impeccable flock of quaintness. Severus knew without a shred of doubt the innkeeper watered down his wares for the sake of profit, but that was the least of the business's problems. Exchanges between hooded patrons were often dubious in both nature and moral ambiguity, and they were commonplace and largely expected, such that Aberforth Dumbledore had erected signage over the years to ward off the more serious and dangerous dealings.

The Hogs Head Inn and pub was where it all began the summer of 1979. He was a nineteen-year-old foolhardy idiot eager to ride the coattails of those who promised rewards that his older and much wiser self would have seen through and renounced. But he had been a fool, and the prophecy which he had overheard and stupidly reported to the Dark Lord carried a heavy price that nearly crushed him and had cemented his position as a double agent. Almost twenty years later, the inn and its owner had kept the Hogwarts students who rebelled against the Carrows fed and watered and when the time came, provided them safe passage when the final battle was imminent. Aberforth Dumbledore had served as warden and protector when he himself had failed to do so, and it was an unspoken debt Severus would never be able to repay.

Severus saw movement beyond the filmy front windows and picked up his pace so that he would not be noticed. His quickened steps led him past Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop, and Silas Scrivenshaft himself stopped in his tracks to watch as he passed. Severus pretended to be suddenly and profoundly blind to the geriatric wizard's wide-eyed stare, instead focusing on the Hogsmeade Train Station that stood off in the distance.

The lane he was traveling finally came to the junction at the deserted station, causing him to come to a dead stop and weigh the options before him. He could take the right fork, past the train station and on to the castle. This was the quickest way to get where he was going, but something pulled him the other direction. Off to the left and around a sharp bend stood the location of the Shrieking Shack, the site where he had nearly lost his life the night of the Battle of Hogwarts. There was no logical reason to take that fork, Severus knew, it would add a good five minutes to his trek, maybe longer if he lingered, but whether out of morbid curiosity or some deep seated masochism, that was the road he found himself taking.

The road was still mostly snow-covered, dotted with slick spots hidden beneath the white powder. What snow remained was untouched, which struck him as odd considering it was on a lane that led to a popular stop among village goers and Hogwarts students. Severus drifted on down the road, ignoring the fact that the entire endeavor seemed foolish, and when he turned the curve that dipped down into a slight gully he froze.

In front of him, the hill on which Britain's most haunted house once sat was strikingly bereft, and for a moment, Severus thought he had made a mistake regarding its location. The chimney, or what remained of it, had fallen in on itself in a heap like some crude cairn. Beneath the freshly fallen snow, he could see the grey discolouration that leached up from what he presumed to be ash that lay around the rubble. Severus left the road and crossed over the property line, his new shoes sinking up to the hem of his trousers into the snow as the ground slanted down. He did not—could not—believe what his eyes were showing him.

It was gone; walls, floors, any solid notion that it had been anything other than a disregarded burn pile, all of it gone, as if he had imagined the house entirely and what had transpired there.

"They burned it, if that's what you're wondering," said a gruff voice. "The Ministry. Shacklebolt said it played on people's fears, reminded them of You-Know-Who."

Severus turned quickly to see a man with long, stringy grey hair and bright blue eyes looking down at him from the up on bank. Leaning against what remained of the stone rampart surrounding the property, Aberforth Dumbledore took a nip from a tarnished silver flask and nodded. At first glance, the younger Dumbledore brother looked absurdly harmless in his green plaid kilt and burgundy knee socks, but that was just as far as his appearance went. Severus had learned, through experience and rumor, that Aberforth preferred to settle his feuds and disagreements with a duel rather than dialogue. Quick in both wit and magic, he was a force to be reckoned with if provoked or intoxicated, and even more so if he happened to be both. The wizard looked exactly as Severus remembered him, strange and bad-tempered in a stately sort of fashion, his faded moleskin cloak flapping around his feet like an injured bird as he walked toward the clearing.

Severus stuffed his hands into his cloak pockets and turned his eyes back to the horizon when the churlish barkeep came to a stop beside him. "Aberforth."

Aberforth took another swig and grunted as the liquor made its way down his gullet. "Snape," he said, then extended the flask to Severus.

He did not know if it was the attempt at a gesture of solidarity or the cold that made him do it, but Severus accepted the flask and took a quick drag before handing it back. He grimaced as the high-test liquor burned a path to his stomach. He might as well have swallowed a mouth-full of petrol. _He must keep the good stuff for himself,_ Severus thought.

"Never thought I'd see you back around these parts," said Aberforth unnecessarily loudly, stowing the flask in his pocket.

"If it is any consolation, I never thought I'd be back here myself," Severus answered.

Aberforth scowled. "Yet here you stand nearly shin-deep in snow bank, staring at an empty hill and a pile of ash."

Severus was quiet for some time, then after a moment of thought he simply said, "I have business at Hogwarts."

"I know," Aberforth said, as though this was common knowledge. "The Headmistress asked me to make sure you didn't run into trouble on your way there."

Severus turned to look at his supposed escort, a mixed look of annoyance and suspicion on his face. "Did she, now?"

The sunlight caught the grimy lenses of Aberforth's glasses, temporarily occluding his blue eyes from view. "Aye, she did just this morning. I've been following you since you passed Hog's Head. Lost sight of you when you passed Silas's place in a hurry, and figured you'd made a detour." The wizard sniffed, then spat onto the ground. "I figured right, turns out."

"I'll be sure to thank Minerva for the bodyguard."

Aberforth let loose a hearty chuckle. "What's wrong? Not looking forward to your return to Hogwarts, Professor?" Severus gave him a sideways glance of unmistakable annoyance. "Say," Aberforth continued, in spite of the clear cues that Severus wished for their conversation to come to an immediate end, "you're not doing this out of some sense of loyalty to that brother of mine are you?"

Severus, who had already turned his attention back to the empty hill, spun around to face the barkeep directly. "Of course not," he blurted out. "I'm merely here as a favour to Minerva." He paused for a moment, searching for the right thing to say. "As far as Albus goes," he said carefully, "I consider any debt I owed him paid in full."

A wide grin appeared on the old wizard's face. "As well you should, Professor. As well you should. It's just that I know better'n most the effect he could have on people, the sort of devotion he could inspire, the things he could make people sacrifice for him."

Severus wanted to believe Aberforth's words were simply those of a younger, less impressive sibling who found himself unable to cope with living in his brother's shadow, but there was a hard truth to them he could not refute. The lying, the spying, the risk and fear of being found out, all would have been enough to take a serious toll, but it was ultimate act of loyalty, the mercy killing of his adviser, beloved Headmaster and key conspirator of the Order of the Phoenix, that pushed him past the point of no return. Albus Dumbledore asked for too much, had taken too much for granted, and Severus had grown to resent him the same as Aberforth resented him for the death of their sister.

There was an awkward silence in which Severus continued to stare blankly at the spot where he had almost lost his life nearly a year prior, the last words the Headmaster had spoken to him running unchecked through his thoughts. The same sick, panicky feeling he felt in the early days of his recovery was creeping back over him. He needed to leave and leave quickly if he intended to have the nerve to go the school as he had promised.

Severus turned away, and trudged back up the embankment to the lane leading to Hogwarts. "I have to go," he said. "I'm already late."

Aberforth fell into step a stride behind him, giving no intention that he was going to stop the ridiculous escort now that Severus had found him out. "How's it feel to finally be a free man?"

"I've always been a free man," Severus answered sourly, "but thank you for the kindness of asking."

"Have you told yourself that lie for so long that you finally believe it?" Aberforth snorted, as though he were the only one in on the presumed joke. "And here I thought you were a smart man."

Severus stopped in the middle of the snow-covered road and looked about himself, arms stretched wide, as if trying to decide which way to go."Why does everyone assume I am just a lowly pawn incapable of controlling my own actions?" He started walking again when Aberforth passed him like an afterthought. "Believe it or not, I was more than just puppet on a string."

"People think it because you did the bidding of two false idiots when you could've washed your hands with the whole lot and started over elsewhere." said Aberforth. "How many years did you give 'em both?"

Severus glowered at him, but kept walking. Whatever else might be said about him, Severus Snape was no man's stooge. "I didn't give either of them anything. Has it never once occurred to you, or anyone else, that I did what I did because I wanted to do it?"

Aberforth threw him a hard look. "No sane man would ever want to do any of it, especially if he valued his own hide."

"A man with a modicum of conscience does it," muttered Severus. The bitterly cold wind was whipping around his face, making his throat so tight that he had to force the words to leave his mouth. "And he does it with more regard to the hides of the innocents than his own."

"Ah, the honor of a conscientious man," said Aberforth. The barkeep roared with laughter and clapped Severus hard on the back. "Albus never deserved you."

"You might be in the minority with that opinion," said Severus. "The general consensus is that Albus was lenient to a fault, what with my sordid youth and questionable associations. If you recall, I was the one that sent him to his grave."

Severus cast a quick sidelong glance at the older wizard, watching as he absorbed the last sentence in silence. Aberforth was watching his feet as they crunched over the half-frozen road. Suddenly, absurdly, Severus felt guilty for having said anything on the subject at all. He stopped walking, intending to say something to bring some semblance of levity to the conversation, but Aberforth beat him to it.

"Aye," the grey barkeep said, his tone sullen. "I seldom forget you saved him from the curse that would've put him there slowly."

"He asked me to do it," Severus admitted. He did not know what else to say.

"Then you did him a courtesy he wouldn't have found in me." Aberforth looked at him, his face still and hard. "It's bad form to speak ill of the dead, but Albus put himself in that crypt long before you put him out of his misery with his glory-seeking and conniving. Anyone who says otherwise can't tell his arse from his elbow as far as I'm concerned."

The remainder of their walk after that was short. They rounded the final bend in the snow-covered lane, and the entrance gate to Hogwarts came into view. Severus noticed a figure standing at the entrance as they grew closer, and it did not take him long to recognize the slim, slightly hunched figure of Argus Filch, the castle's caretaker. "Ah," Severus said loudly enough for only Aberforth to hear him, "I see Minerva sent out the most esteemed member of her staff to welcome me back."

Aberforth chuckled. "Filch. There's something about that one that gives me great desire to kick him directly in the seat of his pants."

"You're not alone in that sentiment, I can assure you," Severus muttered. As if on cue, Argus began waving them forward.

"This is as far as I go, Snape," Aberforth said. The magical wrought iron gate creaked open with a groan. He turned to Severus, his hand clutching his shoulder and spoke quickly, "And a word of advice before we part ways: Whether you choose to see it this way or not, you _are_ a free man. Don't live in my brother's shadow, or You-Know-Who's, or anyone else's for that matter. _You_ decide what to be and go be it, son. It's good to have you back where you belong, even if you don't reckon so."

Aberforth gave his shoulder the familiar fatherly squeeze Albus used to give after he had bestowed upon him some of his sage advice and was about to send him on his way. For a moment, Severus forgot to whom he was speaking, the blue eyes of Albus Dumbledore staring back at him from his brother's face. He almost mentioned the similarity, but figured Aberforth would not take kindly to comparison. Instead he nodded and turned away.

Severus glanced back when he stepped through the gates. Aberforth Dumbledore was watching him from the other side, and the old man smiled warmly when he caught his eye. "Your next drink at The Hog's Head is on the house!" he called out. Severus help up a hand appreciatively, and the old barkeep vanished into thin air with a thunderous crack that startled a frightened yelp out of Filch, who was wrestling the gates through the snow drifts.

Severus turned to face the caretaker, unable to tell how successful he was being at keeping an expression of disdain from appearing on his face. Filch had taken out a stained handkerchief and proceeded to blow his nose loudly enough to scare the feathers off a hippogriff before stuffing the rag back into his pocket and extending a hand toward Severus. Severus regarded it for a second before shaking his head. "I've been feeling a bit ill. Wouldn't want to you to catch it, Argus."

Filch nodded in agreement. "Right. Good thinking, Professor. Come along, then. The Headmistress is expecting you." Filch turned for the castle and began to walk briskly toward it. Severus followed closely behind him. Their route took them by a newly-constructed hut, which Severus assumed to be Hagrid's new dwelling. It did not look quite as filthy as the hut he had lived in prior to the battle, but Hagrid had wasted little time in cluttering the stoop and windowsills with cages and pots of various sizes and dimensions.

As Severus passed, Hagrid spotted him through an open window and called out to him in his booming voice, "Aye, Professor Snape!" Severus stopped and the large, bearded groundskeeper exited the home and ambled toward Severus, smiling. "It's great to have yeh back, Professor," he said as he patted Severus on the back harder than he probably realised.

"This is not a permanent arrangement, Hagrid," Severus told him. The two of them had never been close, and after it was presumed he had murdered Albus, Hagrid held him with nothing but contempt. It appeared all of his sins were forgiven as far as the half-giant was concerned. Severus wondered if he had learned the truth from Minerva or Potter, not that it mattered.

"Tha's a shame," Hagrid said. "The castle could've stood to have yeh back."

"I suppose," said Severus, who had resolved to make an effort to be as cordial to his former colleagues as he could manage. He gestured toward one of the larger cages, partially hidden under the freshly fallen snow. "Are you teaching Care of Magical Creatures this term?"

"Aye," Hagrid said. "I don' reckon the Headmistress much cared fer the trouble with the Skrewts a few years back, but she le' me come back so long as I promised 'er there'd be no more talk o' anything tha' shoots sparks from either end."

Severus nodded and opened his mouth to speak, but Argus cut him off. "Well, we must get along now, Hagrid. Wouldn't want to keep the Headmistress waiting, after all. Got a schedule to keep and too much to do."

"No, o' course not," Hagrid agreed. "See yeh later, then." Hagrid gave Severus's back a final pat and headed back to his hut, where he was greeted at the door by his enormous mastiff.

"Big oaf," groused Argus, as the hut disappeared behind them. He pulled out his handkerchief and blew his reddened nose once more. "Sorry about that, Professor. He never behaves with the dignity of a professor, if you ask me. Far too easy on the rule breakers…"

Severus ignored Filch as he blathered on, and studied the castle as he drew nearer to it. It looked so familiar to him, identical to the place he had spent so many years teaching, but at the same time, there was a foreign quality to it. After all, the last time Severus had laid eyes on Hogwarts, it was engulfed in flames and half the towers had been reduced to smoking piles of rubble. "The castle repairs went smoothly, then?" Severus asked Filch in attempt to relieve himself from the Caretaker's unwanted soliloquy.

"Castle did most of the work itself, truly," Filch explained. "Course some of the professors helped the process along. Some blokes from the Ministry showed up too, but I can't say that they were much help. They left after a day or two."

"Unsurprising," said Severus. "How long did it take?"

"The whole process took a couple months, I'd say. Maybe three. Hard to keep track of time when you've got as many duties as me, you know."

"I don't see how you do it," Severus responded, trying to disguise the sarcasm. When they reached the entrance, Minerva was not there to greet him as he had expected. "I assumed I would be meeting with the Headmistress upon my arrival," he asked, not trying to hide his impatience.

"She's indisposed at the moment, sir," said Filch. "I've been instructed to escort you to her office, and she'll receive you momentarily." This annoyed Severus, but he knew if he let it show, his mood was likely to suffer more than it already had. Instead, he focused on taking in the newly remodeled castle as he made his way to Minerva's office. It all looked the same, the castle had been perfectly restored to its former glory, each portrait and tapestry hung in its proper place, each corridor connected just the way they had been, but it did not feel like the same castle Severus used to call home.

Students began to pour into the hallway, and Severus studied their reactions to seeing them. He recognized most of them, though some he only knew by face and not by name. Several of the students seemingly went out of their ways to give him a wide berth. Many stared at him and whispered to each other as they passed him by. A group of students from his own house, sixth or seventh year students by the looks of them, gave him menacing glares and exchanged sniggers at his expense. Severus tried to keep any hint of embarrassment or resentment from appearing on his face as he quickened his pace, prompting Filch to do the same. There were some familiar faces in the crowd; Ginny Weasley, for instance made eye contact with Severus and stared at him as if he were the last person on earth she had expected to see roaming the halls of Hogwarts. The notion struck Severus as ironic, given that his presence at Hogwarts had been a staple of his very existence for so many years.

Finally, the two men arrived at the Headmistress's office. Filch turned his back and whispered the password, then motioned for Severus to go inside when the stone gargoyle stepped aside. "The Headmistress will be here shortly, I'm sure. Just wait here."

Severus nodded and entered Minerva's office. It looked much the same as it had when Dumbledore had inhabited it, except of course for the obvious lack of a caged Phoenix beside the large, wooden desk. He shrugged out of his traveling cloak as he regarded the portraits adorning the wall, paying particular attention to the one of Albus Dumbledore, which he had conversed with countless times during his brief but tumultuous stint as Headmaster. Dumbledore returned his gaze and smiled warmly. "Severus," he said. "What a pleasant surprise."

Severus could not resist chuckling under his breath. "I'm sure it comes as no surprise to you, Albus. I'm quite sure that even in death, nothing goes on in this office that you fail to take notice of."

"I suppose I'm guilty of that, perhaps among a great many things," Dumbledore replied with an air of self deprecation that Severus did not believe for an instant to be genuine. "But I'm afraid I can't say the same for you. Either that, or you have become even more inconsiderate of the feelings of others than when I was alive."

Severus frowned. "What on earth are you referring to? Whose feelings have I failed to consider?"

"Why, it should be obvious," the old wizard replied. "The person sitting behind you."

Severus turned and examined the room. Much to his uncomfortable dismay, Albus had been proven right. As he had entered the room, he had been unaware of anyone sitting in the high-backed leather chairs that sat opposite Minerva's desk, but upon closer inspection that one of them contained another face all too familiar to Severus. Before he had the chance to say anything, however, the young woman stood up and walked over to him. "Welcome back, Professor," Hermione said in a tone that Severus found to be overly polite. She was clearly nervous. "I was surprised when Professor McGonagall said you agreed to serve as my advisor. It came as a bit of a shock, if I'm being honest."

"I'm sure," was all Severus said, and his tone appeared to deflate any further notions of false pleasantries. _Best get it out of the way sooner, rather than later._

Hermione forced a thin smile. "Professor McGonagall should be back anytime." She looked down at her hands folded neatly in front of her, and began fiddling with a thick leather cuff bracelet she wore. Her fingers roamed over the ornate brass-cast lion that represented her House, as if she could bolster the courage the animal represented. "She had to retrieve valid documentation from Griselda Marchbank, the Examinations Authority head at the Ministry to transfer mentorship from her to you. I believe you'll have to sign it saying you agree to oversee the completion of my practical examinations and that you approve of my intended project."

Severus glanced up at Albus's portrait and saw that the old man had been watching their conversation unfold with rapt interest. It would be no great surprise to learn that the former Headmaster and Minerva had doubtless cooked up this ruse to see how he and his new charge would interact during their first meeting.

"That won't be an issue," Severus said. He went to one of the twin high-back chairs sitting before the Headmistress's desk and gestured for her to take the other. "Though I do question whether the Authority will consider me a legitimate advisor, bearing in mind I no longer teach in any capacity at any institution."

"That was what I said as well," Hermione admitted. She sat perched on the end of her chair like a nervous bird ready to flee at the first sign of trouble. "The Headmistress spoke to Madam Professor Marchbanks at length of the issue, and at first she was not convinced, but she eventually agreed, despite normal conventions, that it was the best course of action when Professor Dumbledore's portrait and Professor Slughorn vouched for you."

"I suppose that settles it, then." Severus glared up at the old man in the portrait, and Dumbledore winked at him before walking out of the frame, leaving the two of them alone. He turned his gaze back to Hermione and caught her staring at him. She cleared her throat and shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "Miss Granger," he said, regarding her carefully, "why do I sense that you are not as keen to the idea?"

"It's not that," Hermione blurted. "I'm thrilled that you've agreed to help me, really. This just came as a bit of a surprise, that's all."

"Minerva didn't tell you." It was not a question, but rather a statement of fact. She had been blindsided, and if Severus suspected right, it had happened shortly before he arrived.

Hermione shook her head. "No, she told me. I suppose it's my fault that I didn't quite understand the arrangement. Professor McGonagall mentioned this past week that she was going to find someone with the proper skill to help us, and I told her that was perfectly fine, but she only told me this morning that the mentorship would be a permanent switch to make things easier on everyone involved, which does seem the logical thing to do..." She trailed off when she saw the look on his face, then backpedaled quickly for good measure. "Please, Professor Snape, don't misinterpret my shock for lack of enthusiasm. I came here this morning to discuss my revisions, and I fully intended to proceed as planned if it fits your schedule, but I only just found out I would be doing so with my _new_ advisor…you."

For a long moment there was only the mechanical sound of the various trinkets about the office spinning and whirring and droning. Then the giant fireplace of the far wall roared to life. Tongues of fat green fire licked over the hearth, sending emerald sparks up the heat-darkened flue. Minerva McGonagall emerged from the flames, and dusted the remnants of Floo Powder from the large envelope she carried, a smile on her face.

"Severus, Miss Granger, forgive me. I didn't anticipate—Good heavens! What—"

Severus was out of his chair, and escorting the surprised witch toward one of the concealed conferencing rooms located in the Headmaster's office. "I need to speak with you, Headmistress," he hissed in her ear. "Privately."

The portrait guarding the secret door was a vast landscape of the Welsh countryside. The faded oil panting depicted a few dozen plump, wooly sheep grazing atop a small, grassy hill. Severus pressed his hand against the lone black sheep near the center of the painting, but instead of touching the canvas his hand passed right through as though it were not there at all. He walked through the barrier to the clandestine room, still clutching Minerva's arm.

"Honestly, Severus, what has gotten into you?" Minerva demanded, straightening the front of her robes when he let her go.

"You and your unilateral decisions," he spat. Severus sat down heavily in one of the plush armchairs lining the wall and scowled at her. "She had no idea you intended to do this."

He had apparently touched a nerve. Minerva went quiet, her face pinched with annoyance, as if she were deciding how best to proceed and still retain some impression of etiquette befitting a Headmistress.

"You told me you would tell her," Severus said, pointing an accusatory finger at her when she simply stood there in silence. "How am I supposed to assist her with anything when she behaves as though there is little she'd rather do less? Did you even tell her that I was the one you were transferring mentorship to?"

"Of course I told her that I had spoken with you."

"That wasn't what I asked you, Minerva. Did you ask her if she agreed, one-hundred percent, with the switch?"

"I didn't mention it to her until we met today because I received word from the Ministry, not even an hour ago, that the transfer was approved. I didn't want her to fret over the validity of it, what with the deadline less than four months away." Minerva shook the thick envelope at him. "Marchbank, that ancient twit, refused to discuss the switch before Albus stepped in and said we wouldn't find anyone better. She only drew up the changes this morning and insisted I retrieve them in person. And I told Hermione what you told me when I met with you last week. Either we find someone with the aptitude for inventive potions, which I clearly lack, or she has to start over with something I can help her with. Miss Granger was given the choice, and she picked you."

When Severus simply sat there with a dubious look on his face, watching Minerva turning the envelope over and over in her hands she said, "Yet somehow you don't think she's capable of handling the transfer."

"Based on what I've seen today, I don't think the transition will be a particularly smooth one."

"Give her time, Severus," Minerva insisted. "She merely intimidated. You know she respects you a great deal, and she's nervous that you will be unimpressed by her."

"Which is why I wish you would have discussed the arrangement with her before you ever contacted me," Severus replied sharply. "I was of the understanding that she was made aware of the plan and was on board with it. If I had known she harbored such reservations about my involvement, I never would have agreed to this in the first place. It could compromise the entire project if she goes forward with an advisor she doesn't trust or want to be around."

"Trust isn't the issue, as I said. Miss Granger is simply nervous, but that will change. I know you're both up to this task, and I know this will most likely prove to be one of the more successful N.E.W.T. practicums to come from Hogwarts with you assisting her one-on-one," Minerva said calmly. "I don't expect you to become fast friends, far from it actually, but she can learn a lot from you, especially out of the confines of Hogwarts. You are the right person for the job, whether you want to believe it or not. After all, didn't you manage to assist her quite successfully all those years you were her Professor? You must've done something right, otherwise we wouldn't be here having this ridiculous conversation."

Severus would have liked to protest but the sound of faint knocking coming from the mirror image of the portrait they had passed through moments before shut him down. Minerva withdrew her wand from a deep pocket in her robes and pointed it at the painting. The painted sheep scuttled down the hill and out of sight just before the image dissolved, revealing a doorless stone archway with Hermione Granger standing on the other side, hand still poised to knock upon the canvas again.

"Professors. I'm sorry, I—"

"No need to apologize, Hermione. Professor Snape and I were finished anyway." The Headmistress turned back to look at Severus and offered him a business-like smile. "Weren't we, Severus?"

The Headmistress said this so seriously, so matter-of-factly, that he knew there would be no more talk on the subject. Thinking it was best to keep any further reservations on the matter to himself, he stood and followed the two of them back out into the main office.

Severus cast a sidelong look as he took one of the twin chairs in front of the giant wooden desk and Hermione took the other. She shifted slightly away from him in her chair, back ridged and jaw set, listening intently to Minerva discuss the details contained within the envelope. He recalled the day she had shown up at his doorstep, bag of potions ingredients in hand, and wondered where that version of her had disappeared to. Now, it was almost as if she made a conscious effort not to notice he was watching her….

"Severus."

"What?" he answered vacantly. The Headmistress's voice had threw him out of a daze, and Severus realised that he had had not been paying the slightest bit of attention.

Minerva peered sternly over her glasses at him. "I said you'll need to sign and date here to signify you agree to mentor Miss Granger to the best of your abilities, and again here saying you approve of her practical project." The Headmistress fanned out official parchments, pointing to where his name was neatly printed. She retrieved the phoenix quill and an inkwell from her desk, unstoppered the little glass bottle, and set both in front of him.

Severus leaned forward, picked up the quill, but stopped just shy of dipping the nib in the black ink. "Are you certain this is what you wish to do, Miss Granger? Otherwise I would rather not waste my time."

Hermione Granger looked over at him, raising her eyebrows in mild surprise, as if she had not expected him to address her so directly. "Absolutely, sir," she said, apparently finding a reservoir of that renowned Gryffindor bravado. "I don't think you'll find me to be a waste of your time, at least I hope not anyway."

"Very well," he answered nonchalantly, and overhead Albus Dumbledore released a quiet chuckle. Severus signed his name to the parchments, keeping his face carefully blank, and dipped the quill back in the inkwell before offering it to her.

"Hermione," the Headmistress cut in, "you will sign below, saying you agree with the change from me to Severus."

Severus half expected her to have a sudden change of heart, but she took the quill from his hand and in one fell swoop of the tines across the final page, sealed the deal. The parchments rolled up on themselves once she had finished, and vanished from the desk with a faint pop.

"I suppose that's all there is to it," said Minerva. "Though if there are any other issues I suspect Madam Marchbank will break her neck to bring them to our attention."

"Thank you, Headmistress," Hermione said. "For all of your help. I doubt I would have made it this far without you."

Severus watched his former colleague wave off the compliment with a sigh and settle more comfortably in her chair. Severus could not help but notice that Minerva looked considerably more relived as she reached for a red plaid tin that lay atop a stack of papers at the corner of the desk and removed the lid. "I daresay my help hardly benefitted you at all, Miss Granger," she said, offering the pair of them a ginger biscuit shaped like a newt - tail, eyes and all. They both declined. "I think all three of us know what good I've done for you, but I suspect that is all about to change."

"Yes," said Severus. "It is." He shifted his attention to Hermione, watching her carefully as he spoke to gauge her manner. "I've only seen very limited portions of your proposed antidote, and what I have seen will only lend itself to a score of Acceptable if the Examinations Authority is feeling generous."

He fully expected her to balk at the criticism just as she had when she was much younger, but she surprised him by remaining collected and level-headed despite his harsh opinion.

"What do you think I need to do?" she asked after a moment of thought.

"I haven't the slightest idea until I see everything you have. Notes, revisions past and current," said Severus ticking each off on his fingers absently. "As well as any dead ends you've come across in your research."

The Headmistress and Hermione both gave him a puzzled look. "Why the dead ends?" Minerva asked. "What good will that do?"

"Mistakes are very telling in potion making. Errors can be found out with enough effort and backtracking. And any intelligent person can usually learn from their mistakes, unless, of course, Miss Granger has developed a certain proclivity for mucking things up beyond reason."

"Would you like my notes now?" Hermione cut in. She reached under her chair, producing the purple bag she had carried with her at Culpepper's. After a moment of rummaging around shoulder-deep in the bag she pulled out two thin bound books of parchments, each with various pages dog-eared and creased. "I brought everything today on the off chance Professor McGonagall convinced you to help us."

She held them out to Severus and he accepted, thumbing through the first several pages. Each page was nearly full with her sweeping handwriting. Rudimentary drawings were littered between the words and various lists of ingredients. It was a tremendous amount of information that would take him hours to sort through properly. "What is the organization to this?"

"There is a chart with page numbers in this book," Hermione said pointing to the more worn notebook. "Professor McGonagall suggested separating the research from the actual potions work. Much of what follows is the research on both the Alihotsy draught and the Glumbumble Treacle. Then I have cross referenced some of ingredients in the Treacle with other antidotes. And I've done the same with the Alihotsy draught…" she trailed off. Hermione gestured to the smaller blue notebook of bound parchments. "This is contains more of the experimental work. I've kept everything just in case."

Severus snapped the red book shut and stood up to leave. "This should be sufficient."

Hermione looked up at him, baffled. "You don't want to discuss it?"

"I have nothing to discuss with you yet," he told her flatly. Severus held up her notebooks, as if to prove his point. "There is too much here to review before I can make any suggestion on how you should move forward."

"He does have a point, Hermione," Minerva said. "Besides, you have been poring over those parchments for the last five months. You could do with a break from it for one day, two at the most, I'm sure." Minerva looked at Severus, as if to make clear to him that he really could take no longer than that, then said, "You'll contact her to set up a time to meet within the next forty-eight hours?"

With everything going on in his life at the moment potions was where Severus knew how to handle himself, and he did not appreciate the presumed intrusion. He considered the Headmistress with a slow, assessing stare, and said, "Do you intend to micromanage this entire process?"

Minerva smiled at him. "Being the Headmistress does give me certain liberties with regards to my students, but no I don't intend to interfere any more than I have to."

"Good. You can expect my owl by the end of the week, Miss Granger," Severus said coolly, still watching the Headmistress. Overhead, Albus smirked from his portrait, apparently finding the entire exchange amusing.

"Then that settles it." Minerva stood and Hermione, who looked slightly stricken, followed suit, slinging the purple bag over her shoulder. "I would see the two of you out properly, but I have a meeting with the Board of Governors in about fifteen minutes to discuss allocations of Ministry funds for the next term. I'll be checking in with you, Miss Granger, to see how things are progressing."

Hermione nodded. "Thanks, Professor McGonagall," she said sincerely before turning her attention to Severus. "And you too, Professor Snape. I mean it, I'm really lucky to have your help on this." Perhaps Hermione Granger knew not to expect a response, or perhaps she was simply in a hurry to get somewhere, but at any rate, she turned to exit without waiting for him to speak.

After she had been gone a few moments, Minerva said, "I trust I don't have to remind you that she is no longer a true student here."

"What are you implying?"

"I'm asking you," Minerva said, "to forget past House rivalry. And not to hold my ineptitude against her, either. There's decent work in those books that shouldn't be clouded with judgment."

Severus's features twisted, as if he had tasted something sour. " _You're_ going to lecture me on the bias of House Points? How many years in a row did Gryffindor win the House Cup with frivolous point giving and shaving?" Minerva looked to be on the verge of supplying a rather lofty response, but Severus cut her off with a bored wave of his hand. "Don't bother, I couldn't care less about your accusations, but you have nothing to trouble yourself over. I no longer have a personal interest in inter-house politics—Miss Granger will be critiqued on the basis of her own merit and effort."

"I'm glad we understand each other," Minerva said, more gently than she had before. She pushed her glasses on top of her head and looked at him for a long while. "Perhaps this is the first step in your return."

Severus laughed outright at that. "Hardly. You and I both know I was never suited for this."

"In for a Sickle, in for a Galleon," Minerva said. "It was worth a shot. Horace is going back into retirement after this year, and it would have been nice to have you sit for an interview."

"I respectfully decline your offer," Severus told her. He picked up his cloak off the back of the chair, turned and started for the door, but stopped when his free hand fell upon the handle. "There are memories here that I would rather forget, Minerva." He glanced up at the portrait of Albus Dumbledore, his face carefully composed. "And coming back does not lend itself to that, unfortunately. It's time I move on elsewhere."

"I understand, and don't hold it against you." Minerva walked around the claw-footed desk and came to stand directly in from of him. She reached up and flattened out his collar, and Severus could almost feel her gaze fall upon the scars on his neck. "You are welcome any time. And for what it's worth, Severus, being that you are a former Headmaster, I think we could make an exception to the prohibition on Apparition," she told him with a sly grin. "It's too bloody cold to traipse all the way back down through Hogsmeade."

"Very well, then," Severus said with a slight nod of agreement. He felt suddenly and deeply tired, much like he felt the majority of the time when he called the castle his home. If he had any qualms about returning, this brief foray into a world he left behind almost a year prior seemed to cement them. He would never be back, not after everything that transpired. The two of them exchanged a handshake and valediction, and Severus, without further ceremony, disappeared from Hogwarts for what he hoped to be the last time with a loud, reverberating _crack!_

"That went surprisingly well, I think," Albus intoned airily from his portrait. "All things considered, of course."

"All things considered?" repeated Minerva, looking up at his portrait. "What things?"

But the former Headmaster had already wandered off somewhere else before he could elaborate.

* * *

Author's Notes: As always, reviews are welcomed and greatly appreciated. The next chapter will be uploaded within the next month or so. Every time I confine myself to a specific date or timeline for an update, something inevitably comes up in RL to complicate or postpone it. Summer holiday is a mere 22 days away, so I do anticipate updates to become to be fairly regular until school resumes again in the fall. Thanks to all those who read and review!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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